


Two Households V: Mortal Flesh

by mad_martha



Series: Two Households [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-15
Updated: 2011-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-20 11:05:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 171,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry faces his greatest challenge – but he doesn't face it alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are one or two issues raised in this story which could be considered contentious. Please do not make the mistake of assuming that the way in which these issues have been dealt with reflects my own personal viewpoint. In particular, this story involves Christianity in the wizarding world; if you have a problem with this walk away. I will not be sympathetic to anyone who complains about the presence of this topic.
> 
> Thanks to contributors are in the endnotes.
> 
> This story is dedicated Jadea, who set me running on it, and to all the readers who waited patiently until I finished it.

**Monday 1 st September 1997**

 **(Full Moon)**

 

"Who's on guard duty today?" Harry Potter asked Sirius Black in a tense undertone as they rode the escalator up from the underground to Kings Cross Station proper.

"No idea.  It doesn't matter anyway."  Sirius looked perfectly calm.  Only someone who knew him really well would detect the tension in his voice.  "It's always as well to assume that you're completely on your own and plan accordingly."

"I do that anyway."

"Good.  Here we are - stick close to me."

Harry forbore to mention that this wouldn't be difficult when the two of them were manhandling his school trunk between them.  "We're going to be really early," he remarked instead.

"That's the plan."

Platform 9 and Platform 10.  The two of them slowed to an excruciating dawdle.  There weren't many people on either platform which, perversely, was not what the two of them wanted.  Empty platforms made it easier for the watchful rail staff to notice odd goings on ... like a man and a teenager with a large trunk disappearing through a supposedly solid barrier.

"There are two bloody trains sitting on these platforms," Sirius muttered, aggravated.  "Why is nobody rushing to get on them?"

"Because they only just arrived here and got rid of one set of passengers?"

"Great.  Come on, we'd better get a coffee and pretend we're waiting."

Railway station coffee had supposedly improved over the past twenty years, but no one looking at Sirius's face would have known that.  He drank it only rarely in any case, but - "The tea would have been worse," he said and drank it down manfully, leaving Harry to wonder if Remus would be doctoring an upset stomach later in the day.  Sirius's stomach was sensitive to bad coffee, especially when he was stressed.

Within fifteen minutes or so the station had begun to bustle again and they set off for the platforms once more. 

"We go together," Sirius told Harry firmly.  His eyes were scanning the station warily.  "One - two - three - "

They leaned against the barrier between the two platforms and fell through the magic portal onto Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

There seemed to be no time to pause and take a breath. 

"Come on, let's find you a carriage," Sirius told Harry. 

A surprising number of people were milling around on the platform.  Harry glanced up at the station clock as they passed under it and saw that it was ten to eleven.  Not so very early after all, then.  Sirius led the way right up to a carriage close to the engine, peering into compartments until he found an empty one. 

"Here ...."

They heaved Harry's trunk up into it and pushed it underneath the seat out of the way.

"Will you be sharing with Ron?" Sirius asked, dusting his hands as he straightened up.

"No.  I told him and Granger not to, just in case."  Under the circumstances, it was better for Harry not to be seen to be friends with Gryffindors.

"What about anyone else?  Zabini?"

"No idea, but I shouldn't think so.  He's a prefect, so he'll be patrolling for most of the time." 

"You'll be okay?"

Harry gave his godfather an odd look.  "I've managed every other year!"

Sirius snorted.  "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I'll be okay."

"Be careful, Harry."  Sirius gave him meaningful look.  "Remember, young Malfoy's probably going to be on the train.  I wouldn't want to bet on how he's spent his summer - or how some of the others have, for that matter."

Professor Dumbledore liked to project an image of this being an adults' war.  The Order of the Phoenix didn't accept members who hadn't finished school (which Harry thought a bit ludicrous given his own central role in the conflict), but it was unlikely that Voldemort suffered from the same scruples.  Nor was he likely to be short of volunteers from the junior ranks; the only question was who the volunteers might be, since they probably posed the greatest threat to Harry's safety while he was at school.  The only consolation to Harry's well-wishers was that Voldemort had made it clear he wanted Harry alive and in good health, and that anyone who deprived him of the pleasure of disposing of Harry personally was risking more than just their life.

That still left plenty of scope for Harry's enemies at school, but as he wasn't exactly defenceless people like Sirius had to grit their teeth and bear it.

"They can take their best shot," Harry replied indifferently.  "It's what I've been practising for all summer, isn't it?"

"Maybe.  All the same, you be careful not to give away every trick up your sleeve," Sirius warned him.  "It doesn't hurt to act as though you know less than you really do.  Look how far that got Wormtail."

"I know."

"Do you?"  Sirius sighed.  "You're becoming a more formidable opponent now.  Voldemort's not stupid, you know.  If he gets the idea that you're becoming a serious threat, he could change his plans.  Some circumstances might be more ideal than others, but ultimately it's more important to him that you die and "how" is just window-dressing.  Try to bear that in mind, won't you?"

"I will, if you and Remus bear in mind that I'll be pretty pissed off if either of _you_ die," Harry replied.

Sirius stared at him for the space of a heartbeat.

" _If_ that happens," he said softly, "I expect you to keep your head and not do anything stupid.  Will you promise me that?"

"No!"  Harry was horrified.  "What are you talking about?  You'd better not be planning anything idiotic or - "

"We're not planning anything, Harry, but it could still happen.  Promise me you won't do anything rash if it does."

Harry was silent for a moment.  "I can't promise I won't do anything," he said finally.  "I promise I won't go off half-cocked though.  Not like I did at the Ministry."

It was a compromise and one that Harry wouldn't have considered offering a year ago.  Sirius accepted it at once.

"Fair enough.  And I promise Moony and I won't go looking for trouble if we can avoid it."  He managed a crooked grin for his godson.  "I like my life these days.  I'd like to hang onto it a bit longer."

"Good.  Make sure you do."

The guard on the station gave the first admonitory whistle, warning that the train was preparing to leave.

"I'd better go," Sirius said.  "Be careful, keep in touch and have a good term, Harry."

"Yeah, you too." 

Harry accepted the hug Sirius offered and watched him jump from the carriage down to the platform.  Now the train whistled and the noise on the platform and from the carriages reached ear-splitting levels as everyone shrieked last minute advice and farewells.  Doors were slamming and the noise out in the corridor was rising as people frantically looked for empty compartments.  Out on the platform parents were pushing a last few late-comers through any available door.  Families stepped back from the edge of the platform.

Harry leaned out of the window and saw Sirius scanning the platform casually, probably looking for the Malfoys.  Harry couldn't see them, but all he could see was a seething mass of multihued robes anyway.  Someone's crup was barking at an ear-splitting pitch, only to be answered by the deeper barks of a mongrel dog elsewhere in the crowd.  It was bedlam. 

Then the train whistled again and jolted into motion.

Sirius reached out at the last minute and grabbed Harry's hand as the train began to move slowly forward.  He squeezed it, staring up into Harry's face for a moment, then released him and stepped back to wave as the train pulled out of King's Cross.

Harry leaned out of the carriage until his godfather and everyone else on the platform disappeared into the distance, then turned around and went back into his compartment.

Another summer at an end.  Another term beginning.  Life carried on as it always did, only this time it didn't feel at all normal to him.

 

xXx

 

For once Harry was the only person in his compartment and it seemed like it might stay that way.  This was highly unusual; normally he had to share with at least one other person, usually a first year who had no idea who he was.  Not that Harry minded being on his own.  There was a limited number of people he didn't mind spending quality time with, but generally he liked his own company best.  Most other pupils tended to be a nuisance, in his opinion.

Harry slid his trunk from under his seat and unfastened the lid, throwing it back.  He found a book, checked a couple of things, and closed the lid of the trunk again, sliding it back under the seat.  He propped his feet up on the opposite seat and was just settling to read when the compartment door slid open.  Blaise Zabini was standing in the doorway, already dressed in his school robes with his prefect's badge prominent on his chest.

"Potter," he said, inclining his head.  "I wondered where you were."  He looked to one side.  "He's in here."

"Thanks." 

Blaise stood back and Millicent Bulstrode entered the compartment, dragging her trunk behind her.

"Do you mind, Potter?" she asked in her familiar forthright way.

"No, it's okay."  Harry stood up to help her stow her trunk.

"Thanks.  I was with some Ravenclaws but they're annoying and besides, Greengrass's cronies were in the next compartment."

"I'll bring my stuff up here when I get a minute," Blaise said.  "I'll be back when I've finished my patrol anyway.  Some of the others might come too.  Watch your backs."

Harry raised his brows at this, and when Blaise left without elaborating he looked at Millicent.

"Malfoy's in the next carriage," she said.

"Ah."

"Parkinson, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle are with him."

"No surprises there."

When it seemed that she had nothing else to say, Harry picked up his book and found his place again.  There was a long silence.  He finished his chapter.

"Had a good summer?" Millicent asked, with eerily good timing.

Harry put a bookmark in – a very faded red and gold cloth one with a threadbare Gryffindor lion at the top, definitely one of Remus's – and put the book aside, thinking of his holiday.  It had certainly been a busy one.

"Not bad," he replied.  "You?"

"Stayed with my grandmother in Bognor," she said.  Harry nodded.  He knew that her mother had died a few years before.  "Congratulations," she added.  "My uncle said your Coming Of Age party was appropriate."

Appropriate?  Harry remembered the rather odd character who was Horace Bulstrode, Millicent's _paterfamilias,_ and decided that "appropriate" was probably a positive description.

"Thanks," he replied.  "It was interesting meeting him."

"That's what he said," she remarked.   She rummaged in the pocket of her travelling robe and pulled out a bag of sweets, a tatty paperback novel, and a small book with a pencil down the spine.  After she'd arranged these on the seat beside her, she added with an odd note of satisfaction: "Things will be different this year. You're somebody now."

She picked up the novel, popped a sugary bonbon into her mouth and settled to read.  Bemused, Harry stared at her for a moment or two, then took his cue from her and picked his book up again.

 

xXx

 

Blaise arrived just after the snack trolley had left.  He dragged his trunk into their compartment and pushed it under a spare seat, then dashed after the trolley to buy himself a pumpkin pasty.

"Sorry," Harry said, when he returned.  "We weren't sure when you'd be back or if you'd want anything."

"Doesn't matter."  Blaise ate his pasty and accepted a swig from Harry's bottle of butterbeer.

"Any trouble?" Harry asked, watching him curiously.

"What, on patrol?  No.  Didn't think there would be."  Blaise wiped his fingers fastidiously on a clean handkerchief.  "It's Granger and Goldstein in charge, so you can bet prefect patrols this year will be really _precise_ and organised.  There's only one thing worse than a Ravenclaw and that's a Ravenclaw who somehow ended up in Gryffindor instead."

Harry managed to suppress most of his grin at this, for Blaise's tone was distinctly unamused, but the description of Hermione was right on the nail. 

"What about Greengrass?" he asked.

"Didn't open her mouth once.  I think she's scared of Granger."

"Or maybe she's scared of you," Harry suggested idly.

Blaise's eyes flicked to him.  "Either way works."

"True."  Harry thought about this.  "Where is she now?  With Parkinson and Malfoy?"

"No room in that compartment.  She's tucked up with Davis and a couple of sixth years she usually hangs around with."

Harry nodded.  Tracy Davis was the fourth Slytherin girl in their year.  She and Daphne Greengrass were usually Pansy Parkinson's hangers' on, which could be problematical now that Daphne was a prefect instead of Pansy.  But perhaps it was worth trying to neutralise her.

"Seems a pity not to pay them a visit, since Malfoy's busy," Harry said casually.  "Wouldn't want them to get bored or feel neglected, would we?"

He looked at Blaise.  For a moment an odd expression crossed the other youth's dark face, then it was gone and he merely looked speculative.

"What if Malfoy's had the same idea?" he asked.

Harry smiled.  "Then we welcome him back.  Don't we?"

"Hm."  But Blaise seemed willing enough.  "Now?"

"No time like the present."  Harry looked across at Millicent.  "Will you come?"

She shook her head.  "I'll stay here and watch the trunks," she said.  "I can settle Greengrass later."

"Good enough.  See you in a while, then."

Harry jerked his head at Blaise and they left the compartment.

 

xXx

 

The corridors were full of younger kids running around.  In this respect having Blaise with him was a benefit to Harry, for his prefect badge and sharp reminders that he could and would take points before they ever got to school cleared an easy path before them.

"Which carriage is Malfoy in?" Harry asked.

"The one up ahead of ours."  Blaise was leading the way in the oppose direction.  "Greengrass is down here."

That in itself was interesting.  Of course, it could just have been a coincidence, but things like who was in which compartment were rarely random where Draco Malfoy was concerned.  He liked to have his supporters close at hand and had no compunction about using his thuggish friends Crabbe and Goyle to clear compartments for them if necessary.  Harry wondered if Daphne was deliberately keeping her distance.

"Next one along," Blaise said finally, and he flattened himself against the wall to let Harry pass him.

"Good.  Tell you what - you keep watch outside, okay?"

The other boy's brows went up.  "Sure you don't want support?"

Harry had had time to think about how to approach Daphne as they made their way down the train.

"Malfoy's the one who needs muscle to frighten people," he said calmly.  He raised a brow at the other boy.  "If I can't deal with them on my own, then I might as well not bother at all."

The odd expression crossed Blaise's face again and Harry finally identified it as sharp interest.  He nodded and took up a guard-like position leaning against the wall next to the compartment door.  Harry stepped around him and shoved the sliding door back briskly.

The four girls inside the compartment froze as he walked inside.  There was a trunk in the middle of the floor with a handful of polished, scored sticks laid out across it in a semi-regular pattern; one of the younger girls was kneeling beside it, but she scrambled to her feet when she saw Harry and, after a split second's hesitation, bowed.  Harry recognised her vaguely as one of the young pureblood Slytherins he'd met at Blaise's invitation the previous week.  Her reaction now surprised him a little and he wondered if the meeting had done some good after all.  He returned the courtesy with a formal bow, just in case.

The others were still staring at him.  On his right was a girl with shoulder-length straight blonde hair, wide hazel eyes and a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose; Daphne Greengrass.  She was quite pretty and despite appearances not at all a dumb blonde, but she was cunning enough to play up to the image and couldn't be relied upon in tricky situations.  There was no such thing as a teacher's pet in Slytherin - Professor Snape despised tattlers and clinger's-on - but if there had been, Daphne would have been one.  Instead she usually sucked up to the prefects instead, which meant that Blaise could be in for a trying year.  She could be relied upon to act in her own best interests in all situations (that much was typical Slytherin behaviour) which meant that Harry would have to find some way of convincing her that Malfoy was a bad bet. 

On his left sat Tracy Davis; physically a foil for Daphne.  She had very dark, wavy hair in a chin-length bob, pale blue eyes and the fresh complexion of someone with Celtic ancestry.  She wasn't generally a girl with much to say for herself, but she had tried out for one of the Chaser positions on the Quidditch team the year before and only failed because Terence Higgs preferred an all-male team.  Harry made a mental note of this; it could be a way to get her on his side now that he was the captain.

The other two were younger girls, sixth years now he supposed.  He knew them by sight only, although Blaise had implied that they were friends of Daphne's.  This was news to Harry, who had assumed Daphne to be one of Pansy Parkinson's biggest cronies; it suggested there were interesting layers to the friendships in the girls' dormitory of his year, as he had never seen either of these girls with Pansy.

"Afternoon," he said mildly, when it seemed like the silence would drag out.  He had never been one for smiling or flattering, so he kept his usual smooth expression as he walked up to the trunk and considered the rune-sticks there.  Ogham sticks were popular with the practising pagans at school.  It was also a familiar pattern to anyone who had spent three years in Divination as Harry had.  "Whoever he is, he'll dump you eventually," he said, adding, "Looks like he'll steal something of value to you at the same time."

The girl who had been kneeling beside the trunk when he walked in quickly bent to gather up the rune-sticks and put them away in a little leather bag.

"You're not a seer, Potter," Daphne said, breaking her silence.  Her voice sounded slightly high and nervous.

He shrugged.  "No I'm not, but then - who is?"

"What do you want?" Tracy demanded.

Harry looked at her.  "I thought we should have a chat."

"We're not interested," she said at once, but he noticed the defensive way she crossed her arms.

"I wasn't talking to you anyway."  He turned to look at Daphne, who was beginning to look alarmed.  "Not sharing a compartment with Parkinson, then?"

"She's with - " Daphne stopped.

Harry nodded.  "With Malfoy, I know."

"You're a bit cocky now he's back," one of the other girls said; not the girl with the rune-sticks.

Harry raised a brow at her.  "Maybe he's a bit cocky to assume that everything's the same," he retorted.  He looked at Daphne again.  "Things have changed already, right?  You're here and not there.  What's the matter, Greengrass - not so sure about him?  Or are you out of favour because you've got the prefect badge and Parkinson hasn't?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes.  "I haven't seen either of them."

"Yet," Harry replied blandly.  "We've still got a few hours to go before we get to Hogwarts.  I think Malfoy's going to want to get the prefects on his side, don't you?"

"What's it to you?" she demanded.

Harry allowed himself a very small smile.  Daphne looked even more alarmed.

"Perhaps Malfoy isn't the one you have to worry about anymore?" he suggested mildly.

"You're full of shit, Potter," Tracy snapped.  "You could have challenged Draco any time before now, but you didn't give a sod for anyone but yourself.  Why should any of us care about you now?"

"Davis, if you think I'm stupid enough to believe any of you will _ever_ care about me, then you've got bats in your attic," Harry told her bluntly.  "You don't give a damn about Malfoy either, you're just too scared of him to do anything but jump when he tells you to."

"Then why are you bothering?" the girl with the rune-sticks asked quietly.

Harry looked at her.  She had a very similar look of speculation in her eyes to the one Blaise got occasionally when he looked at Harry.

"Because I don't feel like dancing to Malfoy's tune this year," he replied a little flatly.  "Even _not_ kowtowing to him wastes my time and pisses me off, because I have to listen to him playing his little games with everyone else and put up with morons like Crabbe and Goyle doing his dirty work for him.  Frankly, I've had enough.  Haven't you?"

"He's not going to stop just because _you_ say so," the other girl retorted.

"He won't," Harry agreed.  "But he'll be forced to if enough people tell him where to get off."

"It's not just him," Daphne said abruptly.  She was looking at her hands, unable to meet anyone else's eyes.  "It's Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Parkinson and a lot of other people.  They aren't going to give up either."

"There's you, Bulstrode and Davis in your dorm, besides Parkinson," Harry told her.  "Parkinson's not too bright - the three of you should be able to settle her if you really want to.  As for Nott, Goyle and Crabbe, you can leave them to me."

"And Malfoy?" the girl with the rune-sticks asked.

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched.  "Malfoy?  What about him?  He's never laid a finger on me."  He met their four confused and incredulous stares blandly.  "Well, he hasn't, has he?  He always gets someone else to do it for him."

"So?" Tracy said, puzzled. 

"So he won't find it so easy to do that this year," Harry replied.  "Anyone stupid enough to let him use them to get at me won't get a second try.  Think about it."  He turned to leave, but before he slid the door shut behind him he turned back to Tracy.  "I'll be holding try-outs for the Quidditch Team, Davis, if you're still interested this year."

He nodded to them all and left.

 

xXx

 

"Any luck?" Blaise asked quietly, as they set off back up the train to their carriage.

Harry shrugged.  "Who knows?"

"Greengrass isn't someone I'd want at my back anyway," Blaise observed as they passed a compartment full of giggling Hufflepuff girls.  "Davis has a pretty quick hand with a hex, though, and she doesn't switch sides in a hurry."

"I've left her with something to think about," Harry replied.  "We'll just have to see what happens."

There was a crash in the next compartment and a chorus of indignant female voices.  Blaise sighed. 

"Sorry, Potter – I'd better take a look."

Harry nodded and let him past.  Blaise grabbed the handle of the compartment door and threw it back sharply.

"All right, what the hell's going on in here?" he demanded.  Harry saw his shoulders jerk sharply.  "What are you doing in here, Nott?"

"He's a prat and he's making a nuisance of himself," a familiar girl's voice said, audibly angry, "but I can deal with him, thank you.  I happen to be a prefect myself."

"Shove off, will you, Zabini?" Theodore Nott's voice said, also annoyed but sounding embarrassed and wary too.

Harry gave Blaise a gentle push through the door and followed him inside.  The compartment immediately became very crowded, but there were three Ravenclaw girls there – sixth years, Harry guessed at once – plus Theodore Nott, one of his dorm-mates and a henchman of Draco Malfoy's.  He was holding someone's school bag above his head and one of the girls, slightly-built with long honey-blonde hair, was glaring at him with folded arms.  Harry knew her rather well; she was Amaranth Snodgrass (known to her friends as Amy), his ex-girlfriend of the previous year.

"Trouble?" he asked politely, and she turned to look at him sharply, startled.

"Oh!  It's you – I didn't see you there."

"Need a hand?" Harry asked her, raising his brows. 

She looked a little disconcerted.  "No – thanks, but I can deal with him."

"Yeah, piss off, Potty," Nott sneered.  "You had your chance and she already dumped you.  Why don't you crawl back to your Gryffindor pals?"

It seemed to Harry that this was a beautiful opportunity which had been dropped practically into the palms of his hands.

"How fast can you run, Nott?" he asked blandly.

"What?"  Nott wasn't _quite_ as slow on the uptake as Crabbe or Goyle, but he wasn't the sharpest quill in the pot either.

"I _said_ – " and Harry waved one empty hand, wordlessly spelling the bag out of Nott's hands and gently onto the nearest empty seat, "how fast can you run – dickhead?"

Nott turned pale so quickly that it was almost funny.  Blaise, keeping his expression remarkably cool, reached out and grabbed the front of his robes, all but dragging him out of the compartment and shoving him up the corridor.

Harry turned back to the three speechless girls. 

"Sorry about that," he said to Amy.  "Look, if he gives you any more trouble, just tell me, okay?  I'll settle him one way or another."

She was staring at him, wide-eyed.  "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"What – what was that about?" she asked faintly.

Suddenly a little embarrassed and not sure why, Harry gave her a small smile and a shrug. 

"Maybe it's a revolution," he suggested, and he left the compartment before he could ruin his whole performance.

 

xXx

 

Blaise didn't say anything else until they got back to their own compartment. 

Millicent was still reading her novel when they walked in.

"Nott came by," she remarked in a bored tone.  "He shoved off again when I threatened to give him warts.  Did you talk to Greengrass?"

"Her and Davis," Harry replied.  He said down by the window and glanced outside.  More anonymous countryside passed by; the Hogwarts Express had to be the only train in the British Isles that almost never travelled through inhabited areas outside of London, and he wasn't sure how that was possible.

He could feel Blaise's eyes on the back of his neck and turned to look at him.  "Something wrong?" he asked.

Blaise gave him an odd look.  "What's with this?" he asked, and he imitated Harry's wandless hand-waving gesture.

Harry gave him a hard stare, remembering Sirius's warning not to reveal all his tricks to people. 

"No idea what you're talking about," he said firmly, and he picked up his own book very pointedly in a warning to the other youth not to push the issue.

Not that he could concentrate on the page, even after Blaise had given up staring at him and found a book of his own to read.

Amy Snodgrass.  Cripes. 

The funny thing was that if it hadn't been for Amy reluctantly but relentlessly dumping him just before Christmas, he might not have got up the courage to make one last attempt to befriend Ron.  Harry wasn't entirely sure what the connection was, but he knew there was a connection somewhere. 

He would never have admitted it to a soul – had made a point of being publicly very indifferent to their break-up – but it hadn't been his idea and he hadn't been at all happy about it.  In fact, he'd been unhappy enough over Christmas that Sirius and Remus had made appalling nuisances of themselves when really all he'd wanted had been to be left alone.  It had been some small consolation that Amy hadn't really been very happy about it either, the break-up being engineered by her interfering older sister, and they had parted reasonably amicably, but the short-but-intense relationship had left Harry feeling unusually depressed and lonely in the New Year. 

He hadn't thought about Amy much if at all since he'd struck up his friendship with Ron.  There had been a brief moment at Easter – a flash of startled comparison when they'd slept together and for a moment he'd been struck by the familiarity/unfamiliarity of sexual contact – but apart from that his attention had been entirely focussed on Ron.  This was something about himself that Harry was vaguely aware of but not especially concerned about; he'd had so few positive relationships in his life that the ones he did form he tended to focus on very intensely.  Cho – Amy – Ron – Sirius and Remus – even, in a weird way, Mr. Pettifer and Dumbledore.  He gave the people he was attached to his full attention, for he felt they deserved nothing less.

But without a reason to continue contact with her, or perhaps an excuse, Harry had pretty much lost contact with Amy.  She was in the year below him, after all, even if there was only three months between them in age; they had no classes together and weren't in the same house.

And suddenly there she was again, and he'd charged in like bloody Sir Lancelot, without even thinking about it, to rescue her from Nott – like she needed rescuing, yeah, right! he knew better than that – and he'd used _wandless magic_ to boot.  In front of her and all her friends and Blaise and, let's not forget, Theodore Nott, the little prick, and Harry knew he could tell himself all he liked that the point had been to scare the living daylights out of Nott, but people like Sirius, Remus and Dumbledore would not be very amused if they knew.

 _You be careful not to give away every trick up your sleeve_ , Sirius had said before he left the train only that morning.

Chances were that Nott had blabbed to Malfoy already about Potty Potter's wandless magic.  Harry's only hope was that Malfoy wouldn't believe him.  It would help a lot if he also simply pretended nothing had happened.  Blaise wouldn't believe it for a moment, of course, but plausible denial went a long way with most people and wandless magic was unusual enough that most other pupils, including (hopefully) Amy and her friends, would be only too happy to believe that they had been fooled by sleight of hand and clever wandwork.  It would have to do.

But _Amy_ ….  Harry couldn't forget the slight jolt in his stomach when he'd heard her voice; a jolt which had prompted him to intervene.

 _Cut it out, Potter_ , he told himself silently.  There was Ron now, after all. 

And Ron gave him a lot more than just a jolt in his stomach when Harry heard his voice.

 

xXx

 

Harry was conscious of a strong sense of _oh, I'm here again_ as he walked into the Great Hall with Blaise for the welcome feast.  He could remember how Hogwarts had seemed like a place full of promise when he first walked through those tall doors; later it had been a refuge from his relatives, however difficult his housemates made his life.  Arriving here had seemed like a welcome. 

He wasn't sure what had changed this year, but the sensation was entirely different.  Perhaps it was the knowledge that this was the last welcome feast he would attend, or maybe it was simply because he'd been here a lot more recently than the other pupils flowing in a steady stream into the Great Hall.  The atmosphere felt different to him, that was all.

Then, as he walked to his usual seat at the long table, he realised what at least part of the sensation was.

Tension.

The other Slytherins were slowly taking their places, but no one would meet anyone else's eyes, what talking there was was tight and nervous, and little glances were being cast up and down the ranks.  Some of the youngest members of the house were abandoning their places of the previous year to clump together anxiously at one end of the table.  Nobody seemed to want to sit down.

Five seats opposite Harry remained empty.  After a minute or so, Theodore Nott scuttled down the table and stood by one of the empty chairs, grinning smugly.

Harry schooled his face to its usual expression of bland boredom and pretended not to notice.  It was difficult, though, when even Blaise and Millicent were vibrating with a kind of silent tautness.  It was so abnormally quiet at their table that the cacophony of the other three houses was deafening and the occupants of the next table – Ravenclaw – were starting to look around and mutter among themselves.  Harry could feel Professor Snape's laser-like eyes sweeping across them.

Then they arrived – Malfoy, Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle.  Crabbe and Goyle were in front, unnecessarily shoving people out of the way and leading the other two.  Harry could see Malfoy walking down between the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables like a dispossessed monarch re-entering his kingdom in triumph and the storm of whispers and muttering that went up from the other tables washed over the hall in a wave.

Harry had no intention of standing there like a subject waiting for permission to withdraw from the royal presence.  He pulled his chair out noisily and leaned forward slightly, looking down the length of the table. 

"You _can_ all sit down, you know," he said in a clear, carrying voice and injected just enough sarcastic bite into the words to give them a Snape-like edge.  It was more successful than he expected; several people actually jumped and pulled their chairs out before they fully realised what they were doing.

As an overall strategy it worked rather well.  Harry took his own seat, feigning indifference to the actions of the others, but he felt a sharp twinge of satisfaction when a good half of the other Slytherins sat down at once in response to his command.  Others dithered for a moment, but by the time Malfoy reached his usual place slightly less than half of the house were still standing, and the ragged nature of the 'honour guard' decidedly detracted from his grand entrance, especially when he stopped by his chair to find that most of the people opposite were already sitting (admittedly rather nervously and not looking in his direction), including Harry Potter, who regarded him with raised, challenging brows from the seat directly opposite.

It was a very sweet moment for Harry.  If the points scored in this little engagement could have been counted in the way that house points were collected in the long tubes in the school's entrance hall, an emerald would have been dropping into his glass there and then.  It was tempting to gloat.  Or simply to ignore Malfoy from then on, which would have been preferable if it was possible.

But the cut-crystal accents of Harry's latest mentor, Petuarius Pettifer, were speaking into his ear as loudly as if the elderly gentleman wizard was sitting in the chair next to him. 

 _"A true gentleman does not gloat, Henry.  He offers the same courtesy to an enemy as he would to a friend."_

 _"Politeness bites harder than profanity,"_ Remus Lupin's cheerful voice added.

Well Harry had already known that, especially where Malfoy was concerned, but it was always useful to get another opinion.

So he smiled up at his old nemesis sunnily, ignoring the indignant red face of Pansy Parkinson next to him, the anxious half-glances of the other Slytherins, and the baffled stupidity of Crabbe and Goyle.

"Welcome back, Malfoy," he said, careful to not to allow the tiniest hint of amusement or satisfaction or anything other than apparent pleasure to colour his tone.  "Had a good summer?"

 

xXx

 

"What's going on over there?" Ron muttered to Hermione.

"Ignore them," she muttered back.

"But there's something going on – "

"And if you ignore it long enough – "

"What the fuck's goin' on with the Slytherins?" Seamus Finnigan demanded in a whisper loud enough to ruffle Parvati Patil's hair ribbons from three seats away.

" – Seamus will do us all a favour and find out for you," Hermione finished grimly.

"Malfoy's back!" Dennis Creevey yelped, and suddenly everyone's eyes were on Ron. 

"And the first years are about to come in to be sorted," Hermione snapped out loud.  "So will you all please stop _ogling_ the Slytherins and sit down, before I have to start taking points from my own house!  _Really_."

"Ouch!" Seamus said, surprised.  "Easy, Granger!"

"It's just Malfoy!" she shot back.  "Who cares where he is so long as he stays out of our way?"

"You don't sound very surprised that he's back here," Parvati said, staring at her.

"I already knew," Hermione said indifferently.  "Strange as it may seem to you, I have sources."

"Anthony Goldstein?" Ron's sister Ginny suggested slyly.

"Possibly!"

Ron's head shot up and he stared at her in disbelief.  "You and Goldstein?" he said incredulously.  "But he's – "

"Head Boy," she interrupted smoothly, but there was a warning look in her eye.  "Don't start reading things into it that aren't there, Ronald."

"He doesn't read anyway, so that won't be a problem," Ginny noted snidely.

"I don't need to.  The pictures on the cover of _Teen Witch_ tell me I don't want to look any further," he retorted. 

"We're all glad you've been saved from finding out the correct shade of nail polish to match your robes," Hermione observed dryly.

"If we can just stop him leaving his bras on the floor of the dorm …." Dean Thomas chimed in, grinning.

"Boil your head, Thomas," Ron told him good-naturedly.

"And while you're at it, Weasley, take that rolled-up pair of socks out of your boxers," Seamus suggested.

"Try saying that again after the first Quidditch practice of the season," Ron advised him.  "I'll get Gin to lend you a pair of her breast-guards if you like."

"If either one of you lays a finger on my breast-guards, you'll find out how good a Beater I could be," Ginny warned them sweetly.

Hermione opened her mouth to intervene, but the doors to the Hall opened then and the sound levels dropped dramatically as Professor McGonagall led a double row of wide-eyed first years up the central aisle to the dais where the three-legged stool with the Sorting Hat was waiting.

Ron took advantage of everyone else's distraction to look across the Hall to the Slytherin table again.  He could just see Harry – the dark-haired teenager was leaning forward casually, elbows propped on the table and his chin on one hand, watching the scene at the front of the Hall with every indication of intense interest.  He looked remarkably unconcerned, which was a decided contrast to just about everyone else at his table.  Ron could see Blaise Zabini more even clearly than he could see Harry and the tension in his stiff smile as Harry made a casual comment to him was almost painful to watch.  Then there was Malfoy himself.  Ron caught a brief sight of his profile as he turned to listen to something Pansy Parkinson said; his face was pale and hard and angry-looking behind its frame of collar-length white-blond hair, the few words he spoke clipped, his lips barely moving.  The other Slytherins were unnaturally quiet and Ron could see the Ravenclaws glancing at them uneasily now and then.  Everyone else was applauding and cheering as each new pupil was Sorted, but it was very half-hearted over that side of the Hall. 

Ron looked up at the high table, curious about Professor Snape's reaction to this.  The Potions Master was watching his house with a brooding, hard-eyed look.  Then Ron remembered that Harry had a meeting with Snape straight after the feast and hastily looked away.

Somehow he didn't think that would go well.

 

xXx

 

"Pity you couldn't come to my mother's Mid-Summer Ball this year, Zabini," Draco said rather pointedly halfway through the feast.

He and Pansy had been directing little comments like this towards Blaise and a number of other Slytherins nearby all through the meal, making a big performance of ignoring Harry while clearly directing many of the remarks obliquely in his direction.  As far as Harry was concerned it was all nuisance-value stuff, the kind of thing that they'd been inflicting upon him for the past six years, and he'd long ago developed the proverbial duck's back in that respect – although always with a cautious ear tuned to it for his own safety.

Blaise was definitely taking the brunt on this occasion though.

"My grandfather was unwell," he said quietly.  "I sent my apologies to your mother."

"I know," Draco said coolly.  "Still, at least your father was able to attend."

Harry noted the complete lack of concern in his tone, along with another odd note that he couldn't quite identify.

"How is your grandfather?" he asked Blaise quietly, remembering that the other youth had mentioned Antonio Zabini's illness as the reason for him not attending Harry's Coming of Age party.

There was the tiniest pause before Blaise replied, "He's all right, thanks."

His tone gave the statement no conviction, but Harry knew better than to probe the matter more deeply in such a public place.  Besides, Malfoy's smug expression (gloating was one of his most betraying character flaws) gave him a very strong hint that whatever was wrong with Antonio Zabini wasn't necessarily the natural consequence of advancing age.  The fact that this possibly explained Blaise's sudden determination to side with the house misfit - for he had a lot of pride - was of no satisfaction to Harry whatsoever.  Antonio Zabini had been one of his grandfather's associates, and although the Slytherin code regarding loyalties was now well and truly muddled in Harry's mind with his own unforgiving code of behaviour and the new morals that people like Mr. Pettifer had gently been trying to instil, he recognised in a distant way that there was a familial requirement to respect old Mr. Zabini for his grandfather's sake and also - more nearly - that he owed a duty to Blaise in return for his championship in the house leadership battle.  Besides ... the self-satisfied smirk on Draco Malfoy's face at Blaise's imperfectly hidden distress lit a small, cold flame of rage inside him.

This year, Harry felt, the time was ripe for Draco and his cronies to discover what the misery they enjoyed seeing inflicted on others felt like.  Up close and personal.

And if he was going to be any kind of leader, it was Harry's duty to ensure that they learned the lesson - personally.

 

xXx

 

Snape was seated coolly behind his office desk, waiting, when Harry arrived for his appointment.  Harry wasn't quite sure how he managed this as the Potions Master had still been in the Great Hall when he left it, and he hadn't detoured to the Slytherin dormitories first, but he'd mostly given up on trying to fathom Snape's ways and means. 

Mostly.  Slytherins weren't particularly noted for letting things drop, especially if those things could be advantageous.

"You're late, Mr. Potter," Snape said now, his voice rich with a kind of pleased contempt.

Harry allowed himself a split second to consider looking bored in response.  He settled on neutral; it was too early in the year to enjoy provoking the professor into vindictiveness.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"On the contrary, I instructed you to come here.  "Want" would suggest that I take pleasure in your presence and nothing, you may believe me, is further from the truth, Potter." 

Hooded eyes studied him, but Harry kept a calm face under their searching.  A white-hot needle seemed to leap invisibly between them; it sought persistently to bore into his thoughts, but could find no purchase and after a moment rebounded harmlessly off Harry's mental shielding.  He kept his face still under those cold eyes and readied himself, guessing that Snape would try again.

He was right - although this time it wasn't a needle but a weird, ticklish sensation.  Again, he held his face still and cool, but this time he "allowed" Snape to find a thought held under a thin skin of shielding that brushed away at the touch.  Not a real memory, but something he'd manufactured from something he'd once inadvertently seen -

\- and he felt the potions master recoil at the content of the thought.  Physically it manifested as a tiny jerk of his chin and a swift look of revulsion, and Harry had to put a little extra effort into looking blandly unconcerned, for his stomach tightened with the desire to laugh.  Well, he _had_ seen both Sirius and Remus in the bath together over the summer, and only a short while before he'd caught them kissing, so it didn't take a huge mental leap to combine the two images into something he knew Snape would be horrified to witness.

In one swift motion, Snape was on his feet and circling around the front of the desk until he almost stood on Harry's toes.

"Mocking me, Potter?" he hissed.

Harry looked politely surprised.  "Professor?"

Snape drew himself upright.  "I suggest that you explain just what, exactly, you thought you were doing at feast this evening."

"Eating, Sir?"

"Do not push me, Potter!"  His voice was like a whip.  "I smell dissension and disorder in the rank and file of Slytherin, and I will warn you this once - _only_ this once - that I will not tolerate the wanton disruption of order among the students of my House in order to further your puerile games.  Do I make myself clear?"

"I'm not playing any games, Professor."  Harry wondered if Snape's prejudice would prevent him hearing the sincerity in the statement. 

Snape seemed to draw back a little, his hard eyes searching Harry's face again suspiciously.  A tiny crease appeared between his brows that would not have been visible from any greater distance.  Suspicion gave way to something else that Harry couldn't quite identify and he seemed to relax a fraction, taking a step back.  After a moment he slowly returned to the other side of the take, taking his seat again, but his eyes never left Harry's face.

"Tomorrow morning, Potter, the timetables for the school year will be issued.  You will notice that there are certain blank spots upon your own that would normally be used for private NEWT studies."  He picked up a small piece of parchment with spidery writing across it and held it out to Harry.  "This is charmed for your eyes only, but I would suggest you endeavour not to let it fall into the hands of others in any case.  It gives details of the extracurricular subjects you will be studying in your spare time this year, and the details are not to be passed on to any of your cronies, is that clear?  Great care is being expended upon maintaining your safety and opportunities for self-improvement this year, and it would make a pleasant change if for once you bothered to respect that fact."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said, keeping a tight grip on his feelings and expression as he accepted the slip of paper.

"With regard to the Quidditch team," Snape continued, his face twisting into a sneer, "I hope it is unnecessary for me to point out that you would never have been selected as captain had another viable choice existed.  Having said that, I suppose it is stretching optimism too far to hope that you have given any thought to management of the team this year."

Not only had he thought about it, Harry had discussed some of it with Ron, but he wasn't about to tell Snape that.  Ron was captain of the Gryffindor team, after all.  Quidditch was going to be _interesting_ this year ... provided his Head of House didn't decide to interfere in the selection of members.

"I'm planning to hold try-outs for every position at the first opportunity, Sir," he said, still managing to keep his tone neutral.

" _Every_ position?" Snape repeated coldly.

"Yes Sir.  Seeker included."

There was a pause.

"I see.  I assume you plan to provide the team with a reserve to cover your frequent absences."

 _That's the general idea_ , Harry thought, disgruntled, _but I wouldn't have put it like that exactly._   Instead he replied: "We need reserves for every position, Sir, not just the Chasers and Beaters."

"Very well."  Snape's eyes were hooded once more.  "I expect to see a list of names and proposed rosters in due course."

Harry nodded and there was another pause, this one more thoughtful.  Snape tapped one long, elegant finger on the desk and Harry's eyes were caught by the movement, surprised.  He'd never noticed before but Snape had hands just like Sirius's ... and like Andromeda Tonks's for that matter.  Black hands.  It was a weird thing to realise at such a moment.

"The Headmaster has instructed me to speak to you on the subject of Draco Malfoy," Snape said finally, and Harry dragged his eyes back to the professor's face hastily.  "The circumstances of Mr. Malfoy's return are none of your business, Potter, but I suppose it is necessary to inform you that he will not be playing Quidditch this year and will have no ... legitimate excuse for going near the pitch, changing rooms, landing pads or broom sheds."  His eyes were hard as they bored into Harry again.  "The Head Boy and Head Girl have been made aware of this fact.  If you value your skin, you will not make anyone else aware of it, is that clear?"

So Malfoy had been permitted to return to Hogwarts only under certain conditions.  Harry hoped that the Quidditch/flying ban was the tip of the iceberg - and that Malfoy tried to break his conditions as soon as possible, preferably where someone who couldn't or wouldn't ignore it was in a position to witness the breach.  Someone like Anthony Goldstein, the new Head Boy, would do nicely.

"I said, _is that clear?_ "

"Yes, Professor," Harry replied docilely.  He had no real need to tell anyone, after all.  The cat would be out of the bag as soon as Malfoy failed to attend the first Quidditch match of the season, if not before.

Snape's eyes were sparking with annoyance.  "Dismissed."

Harry offered him a short bow without thinking, and turned to go.  His hand was barely on the latch of the door when Snape's voice stopped him cold.

"Remember what I said, Potter - I will not tolerate the fomentation of unrest in Slytherin House and should I find you at the root of it, you will regret it.  You would be well advised to keep yourself to yourself for once.  Dismissed."

Harry had tried to keep himself to himself for six years, with indifferent success.  This year, he had already decided, that would change.

 

xXx

 

It was just as well that Snape hadn't kept Harry any longer.  When he opened the dormitory door, it was to find an angry and defiant Blaise being kept at bay by Crabbe and Goyle while Malfoy stood over Theo Nott, who was crouching in front of Harry's trunk, trying to break the wards on it.

Harry's wand was in his hand without even having to think about it; his reflexes had improved a _lot_ over the summer.

 _"Petrificus totalis!"_

All four of them were frozen where they stood, and Harry just barely managed to avoid catching Blaise with it as well.  Four heads were caught in the act of looking over shoulders towards the door, a position that Harry hoped would give them all a crick in the neck when he lifted the spell.

"Morons," he said witheringly.  "They never learn.  What were they looking for anyway?"

"No idea," Blaise said stiffly.

Harry looked at him and the corner of his mouth twitched.  "Thanks for trying to keep them off."

Blaise relaxed a tiny fraction.  "You're welcome."

"They'd have got a nasty surprise if they _had_ broken the wards, though."  Harry flicked his wand at them.  _"Finite incantatem!"_

The four of them sagged at the release of the spell and Nott was in such a hurry to get clear of Harry that he ended up on his rear in the middle of the room before he could pick himself up properly.

"Potter!" Malfoy spat, rubbing his neck and staring poisonously at him.

Harry raised a brow at him.  "You and your mates are almost kinky about my trunk," he said with false affability.  "If you're that desperate to get into my underwear, why don't you just say so?  Of course, it'd get you hexed six ways to Sunday, but I reckon you'd still feel a whole lot better if you just admitted it."

Ignoring Malfoy and Nott's horrified spluttering, he crouched down and brushed his fingertips over the lock of his trunk, sending a tiny trickle of power into the wards to release them.  Lifting the lid he reached inside and pulled out a clear glass container roughly twice the size of a house brick with small holes in the top.

"There's someone here I'd like you all to meet," he told them, smiling.  He eased the lid off the box and put his hand inside, waiting.  Slowly, ticklishly, she investigated his fingers with her forelegs before carefully climbing up his hand an inch at a time.

"This is Phoebe," Harry said, watching Malfoy's eyes with satisfaction as they nearly started out of their sockets. 

"That's ... a Rat-Eating Funnel Spider, isn't it?" Blaise said in a very controlled voice.

"That's right."  Harry put the container onto his bed and allowed 'Phoebe' to crawl into his cupped hands.  She was enormous and his two hands could barely contain her but she crouched there, lulled by the warmth of his skin.  "There was a colony of them in the wine cellar at home and my godfather let me keep one."

That was a gross oversimplification of the intense 'discussion' he'd had with Sirius and Remus before they would allow him to bring the spider back to school with him, and Harry had a suspicion that only their joint history of pranking at school had really won them over.  Sirius had been the main objector; Remus was mostly concerned about Harry's ability to handle Phoebe.

"You - you've had it defanged, right?" Nott said haltingly.  His face was almost whiter than Malfoy's.

Harry's raised his brows at him.  "No.  Why would I do that?"

"You're lying!"  Malfoy's voice was shaking slightly.  "Those things are lethal!  There isn't a magical pet shop that would dare sell one with its fangs intact - "

"I didn't get her from a shop, did I?" Harry told him impatiently.  "And I haven't defanged her because it's cruel - how's she supposed to catch her own food without fangs?  You should be grateful, Malfoy, there won't be a mouse in this place with Phoebe around."

"Call me a coward, but I'd really prefer a cat, Potter," Blaise said.  His eyes too were fixed on the enormous silky-furred spider in Harry's hands.  "Tell me you aren't planning to let it loose in the dorm."

"'Course not!"

Everyone seemed to breathe a little easier at this.  Deeply amused, Harry climbed carefully onto his bed and coaxed Phoebe into a nice fold of cloth in the corner of the canopy.  Then he drew his wand and began to trace wards around the bed, following the lines of the frame.  It took about ten minutes and he was aware of five pairs of eyes following his every move as he did so.  When he was finished, Harry jumped down again.

"Okay, it works like this," he told them matter-of-factly.  "The wards enclose my bed from the floor to the canopy and they're keyed only to me.  Phoebe will stay inside the wards.  So long as no one does anything stupid to breach the wards – like trying to break into my trunk again – she'll stay inside and not hurt anyone.  If you breach the wards …."  He let the words trail off and raised his brows.

Silence.  Goyle and Crabbe looked mostly perplexed, but the other three were tense.  Finally Blaise found the words for all of them.

"You're planning to sleep inside a set of enclosed wards with a lethally poisonous spider," he said incredulously. 

"Look at it this way – if she bites me, at least I'll know it's nothing personal," Harry suggested.

Malfoy's expression turned malicious.  "You really are insane, Potter, aren't you?  You've been spending too long with Black – everyone knows he left half his wits in Azkaban!"

Harry shrugged, unimpressed.  "You can believe that if it makes you feel more comfortable, Malfoy, but in case you've forgotten you're more closely related to Sirius than I am."

"Fine!  I hope the spider does the Dark Lord's work for him.  But I'm warning you, Potter – if that _thing_ gets loose and I find it – "

"You'll stun her – _lightly_ , Malfoy – and put her back on my bed where she belongs," Harry told him sharply.  "If any harm comes to her I'll blame you, whether it's your fault or not, and you won't like what happens next, I promise."

"I'm quaking," Malfoy sneered, and he crossed the room to his own bed.  He climbed onto it and started drawing the curtains.  "I'd say it was nice knowing you, but I'd be lying."

"The feeling's mutual, believe me."

That seemed to be that.  Goyle and Crabbe slowly shuffled off to their beds, and after a moment of staring at Harry's bed curtains Nott followed their example.  That left just Blaise, who was still staring at Harry as though he had two heads.

"You can't seriously mean to sleep in there with an untreated spider," he said.

Harry gave him a tiny grin.  "I'll see you in the morning, Zabini."

 

xXx

 

 **2 nd September – 13th September 1997**

Harry awoke early the next morning and turned over to discover that one corner of his bed's canopy had been turned into a delicate work of art overnight.  He gazed up at it in the dim morning light that filtered through the high artificial apertures that simulated windows into the underground dormitories, and smiled.

"Clever girl, Phoebe."

The web was nearly three feet wide and formed a deep funnel-shaped depression which the spider tucked herself inside to await prey; Harry could just see a shadow of a silky foreleg.  He would have to be very careful opening the curtain on that side of the bed to avoid disturbing the long threads that anchored it.  He had no concerns about her ability to catch things, even inside the wards.  Mice, and occasionally rats, were a constant problem in the Slytherin dormitories because the dungeons were below ground level.  Revulsion of the horrible little beasts running loose around the beds was the only thing that had united all five boys in Harry's dormitory over the past six years; it wasn't unusual to wake up in the night and find them crawling over the canopies and hanging from the curtains.  It was nearly impossible to ward against them (magical wards had very little effect on animals, unlike humans, which was why both Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black had managed to break into Hogwarts so easily four years previously) and traps barely made a dent in their numbers.  It was possible to ward against insects however, which was how Harry could confine Phoebe to his bed area and yet still make it possible for her to catch her own food - the mice would simply come to her.

In fact, Harry thought he spied a silk-wrapped bundle stashed at the edge of the web already.  Excellent.

He sat up slowly and pushed the thick covers back, feeling the gooseflesh rise on his arms and chest from the dank atmosphere.  That was another disadvantage of living in the dungeons; it was always cold, even when it was t-shirt weather outside.  None of his dorm-mates seemed to be awake when he pushed a curtain back and he was able to slip off to the bathroom, wash and dress without encountering any of them.  Harry had always been an early riser, for his aunt had never allowed him to linger in bed even when he was ill, and it was a habit that stood him in good stead when he was trying to avoid the other Slytherins.

As usual he was one of the first to enter the Great Hall for breakfast, ahead of most of the professors even.  One other person was already there, at the Gryffindor table, nose buried in a book; Hermione Granger looked up when Harry walked in and nodded cautiously to him.  As there was no one else around, he nodded back.  To his mild surprise she raised a hand, thumb and forefinger looped in an "okay" gesture, and raised a brow questioningly at him.  The corner of his mouth twitched; he shrugged.  She nodded again, then shook her head and turned back to her book.

Harry knew that Ron would get the message as soon as he appeared for breakfast (he spared a moment to wonder if his friend was even now trying frantically to finish off his summer essays as Hermione had predicted only a few days before) and relaxed a little.  Although perhaps it was a bit soon to be telling anyone he was okay.  He took a seat and scanned the table, thinking that it might be as well to have a hearty breakfast.  There was no telling what the day held, after all.  He took a couple of slices of toast and reached for the bacon dish, and as he was helping himself to several rashers he noticed that his toast had turned into four golden brown crumpets, dripping with butter.

He swallowed a grin.  Dobby must be in charge of the breakfast crew that morning; Harry made a mental note to visit the kitchens at the first opportunity and thank him.  Crumpets were a favourite of his but they usually only appeared on the top table, not at the house tables.

"Good morning, Mr. Potter!"

Harry looked up, startled.  It was Professor Flitwick, pausing in trotting past the Slytherin table to nod and beam almost paternally at him.  He swallowed a mouthful of crumpet hastily.

"Good morning, Professor."

"Ready for the new term, are we?"

Interesting question.  "I hope so, Sir."

"Excellent, excellent!  Well, we'd best be getting on with the morning, hadn't we?  I shall see you later, young man.  Good morning, Miss Granger!" 

And Flitwick was off again, nodding and greeting the handful of pupils who were starting to filter into the hall as he headed for the top table.  Harry watched thoughtfully as the little man greeted Professors  McGonagall and Vector and settled into his usual seat.  Officially, he wasn't supposed to be taking classes with Flitwick this year, as he'd already passed his Charms NEWT, but he already knew from his conversation with Professor Snape the previous evening that what he was supposed to be doing 'officially' probably didn't bear much resemblance to what he _would_ be doing.  It hadn't been possible to judge precisely what that was from the scrap of paper he'd been given, but Harry suspected that managing his time was going to be an exercise in juggling, in spite of whatever his 'official' timetable said.

The trickle of pupils into the hall was thickening to a stream and then a small river.  The top table was also filling up, although Professor Snape, the Headmaster and a couple of others were still missing.  Hagrid had just arrived; he saw Harry at the Slytherin table and raised a hand in greeting, his whiskery face creasing into a big smile.  Harry grinned and waved back.

"Still an early riser, then, Potter?"  Blaise slipped into the chair next to him.

"Yeah, I get earlier every year," Harry replied amiably.  "Good thing this is our last year, because I reckon I won't be going to bed at all soon."

Blaise snorted softly and helped himself to poached eggs and toast.  "If you will sleep with spiders …."

Harry caught sight of a shock of white-blond hair in the entrance to the Great Hall.  "It's not the spiders I have a problem with," he said thoughtfully.  "It's the snakes."

Blaise gave him an odd look, then followed his eyes.  "We're all snakes in the dungeons," he said, after a tiny pause.  "Isn't that the point?"

"There's all sorts of snakes, Zabini."

Harry finished the last bite of his crumpets and wondered if he should get up and leave.  But leaving when Malfoy was just arriving would send out the wrong signals to the other Slytherins.  Besides, the mail hadn't arrived yet and Snape would be handing out timetables at some point.  He stifled his impatience and reached for the juice jug to refill his glass.  He didn't really want it but it would be something to do instead of simply sitting there like a dummy while everyone else was eating.

Malfoy and his little coterie of followers took their seats opposite him with a noisy clatter of chairs and school bags.

"Not dead yet, Potter?" he said, pale eyes glinting.  "Pity, but there's still time I suppose."

"Just what I was thinking," Harry replied blandly.  It occurred to him that next to Professor Snape, Malfoy was an amateur in the cutting remark stakes.

"Spider venom is supposed to be quite painful," Malfoy continued, as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.  "Should be interesting to watch – and listen to.  There's a certain _artistry_ in pain, you know."

Harry remembered Voldemort torturing him with the Cruciatus Curse when he was fourteen.  "No, I don't know, and I don't think you do either," he replied, doing his best to sound bored.  "But the next time you have toothache, feel free to take notes and we'll compare."

"It'll have to be by séance then," Malfoy said scornfully.  "Which part of _deadly venom_ don't you get, Potter?"  He turned to Pansy Parkinson and gave a short laugh, saying, "This moron is actually sleeping with an undoctored Rat-Eating Spider!  Maybe he thinks it makes him look tough, but personally I think he's going to do us all a favour."

His pronouncement wasn't productive of quite the response he hoped for.  Pansy sucked in a sharp breath and her protuberant eyes widened with alarm.

"A poisonous spider?  In the _dormitories?_ "

"She's really very sweet natured," Harry said, in mocking reassurance.  "Besides, she's warded inside my bed.  She won't get loose."  He took a sip of his juice, smirking a little.

Pansy ignored him.  She grabbed her plate and bag and got up, taking them to go and sit further down the table with Daphne Greengrass and Tracy Davis.  Within seconds their heads were together and moments later Harry could hear gasps and exclamations. 

 _Pathetic_ , he thought.  Gryffindor Lee Jordan had supposedly kept a Tarantula in his dormitory for five years and no one had squealed about that.  Of course, that had been on the other side of the school, and they were Gryffindors besides.  Perhaps they weren't – certain individuals aside – bright enough to be alive to the possibilities of death by insect; but it still didn't reflect very well on the courage of Slytherins.

"Girls!" Malfoy said witheringly, apparently conveniently forgetting his own less than manly response the night before.

Harry was assailed by a mental vision of Draco Malfoy in a girl's uniform with ribbons in his hair, and it was a struggle not to inhale his drink.  Then he saw Professor Snape approaching the Slytherin table with a sheaf of timetables in his hand, and sobered.

"Did you pass that NEWT you were taking?" Blaise asked softly.

"Yes, luckily …."

"You should have a lot of free time then."

"Maybe."  Harry thought of the slip of parchment tucked in an inside pocket of his robe.

Malfoy got his timetable first; Harry watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw a sour look cross the blond youth's face before he pasted on a smug sneer.

Interesting.  Apparently Harry wasn't the only one who kept a stock expression for everyday wear.  And apparently Malfoy's timetable wasn't entirely to his liking.

"Potter."

"Sir?"  Harry looked up and quickly took the sheet of parchment Snape held out to him.  For a moment their eyes met, then Snape moved on and Harry looked at his timetable.  Transfiguration – check.  Potions – check.  Herbology and Defence Against The Dark Arts – check.  Divination – check, unfortunately.  Care of Magical Creatures was missing, but he'd reluctantly agreed with Dumbledore to drop that one in order to give himself more study time.  With that and Charms missing, he had some significant gaps on the sheet.

"Lucky you," Blaise said in a disgruntled tone, looking over Harry's shoulder.

"Don't be too sure of that," Harry replied, and he saw the other boy frown.  "You know how much Snape likes me.  Chances are I'll spend half of these free periods in detention or something."

Which was true … up to a point.  'Detention' was one of the euphemisms Snape liked to use in order to cover for Harry's Occlumency lessons.  Harry would have preferred the real detentions in most cases.

"You might want to stay in his good book this year," Blaise pointed out dryly.  "Otherwise we'll be looking for another Quidditch Captain."

Harry saw Malfoy's head come up sharply at that, but then the mail was arriving and Hedwig swooped down to drop a letter and a package next to his plate.  Both were addressed in Sirius's handwriting, but the parcel turned out to be from Remus and contained a leather-bound organiser and a note.

 

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I forgot to give you this before you left; you'll probably find it useful this year.  Tuck your timetable inside the cover and it'll transfer all your classes to the right pages and set up reminders for you.  It'll do the same for entries you write in yourself._

 _Be careful and write often._   
__

_Love, Remus_

 

The handwriting was shakier than normal, but the full moon had been only the previous night.  Harry was astonished that his godfather had been able to write this at all, and guessed that the parcel had actually been prepared sometime the previous day.  After a moment he opened the organiser and slid his timetable behind a couple of slender straps inside the front cover.  He was amused when the entries seemed to pick themselves up off the sheet of paper and shuffle over to the diary part of the organiser where they faded gently through the paper, so he slipped the square of parchment containing the details of his extracurricular activities out of his robe and put that into the organiser as well, just to see what would happen.  Sure enough, Snape's spidery writing shuffled itself into the relevant pages of the organiser too.  Harry flicked to the first page and saw that he had Transfiguration and Herbology and, in weird shimmering script, a session with Professor Flitwick later that evening after dinner.

The Transfiguration note was already flashing an image of a stern tabby cat in spectacles by way of a warning (presumably it was meant to be Professor McGonagall's animagus form).  He had less than ten minutes to get there.

 

xXx

 

Harry hadn't expected his first day to be easy, but the amount of homework he received from Professor McGonagall was daunting, even with the prospect of some free time later that afternoon.  And it became more daunting at lunchtime when he discovered Remus's new organiser wriggling demandingly in the bottom of his bag.  He pulled it out and opened it to find a new note on that day's page; between Herbology and his meeting with Professor Flitwick the image of a phoenix bloomed sharply and vanished again, leaving a trail of little red sparkles across the thick paper.

What on earth – oh.  A _phoenix_. 

Fawkes.

Snape had mentioned in Harry's admissions letter that Dumbledore expected him to bring certain books with him to Hogwarts, books that were certainly nothing to do with any syllabus the school followed.  If a new – and hidden – meeting signified by an image of Fawkes was in his organiser, the obvious conclusion was that the Headmaster wanted to see him.  Almost immediately after Herbology, too.  Damn.  Harry hoped the meeting wouldn't take too long, or he would be left with no time to start his Transfiguration homework that afternoon.  He didn't want to have to start studying into the early hours of the morning this early in the term.

He flicked through the next few pages of the organiser to see how his week was likely to pan out.  He had to start thinking about setting up trials for the Quidditch Team, which would have to be held over a weekend, and then regular practice sessions.  On the face of it, there were plenty of gaps in his week (at least compared to previous years) but there had been a reasonable gap in his afternoon until Dumbledore's message appeared unexpectedly.

Feeling very sour and put-upon, Harry put the organiser away and finished his lunch as fast as he could.  It was a nice day and there was a wide, low wall to sit on outside Greenhouse 5.  Perhaps he could snatch ten minutes' Transfiguration study before Herbology started.

He passed the Gryffindor table on his way out of the hall and caught sight of Ron halfway down the row of seats with his kneazle Rosebud sitting hopefully next to his plate.  Ron looked as stressed as Harry felt and he was ignoring his lunch in favour of writing frantically on a long sheet of parchment.  Harry felt a tickle of amusement; either Ron was trying to get a head start on his homework too, or Hermione's earlier assessment had been truer than she knew.

Taking a seat on the mossy wall outside the greenhouse complex, Harry reflected that while the organiser had yet to prove itself an unqualified success, he still had a lot to be grateful to Remus Lupin for.  The Patronus Charm, for example.  Providing a buffer zone – and sometimes a full-body block – between Harry and Sirius during their first couple of years of cohabitation.  And a number of handy study techniques that had helped Harry to make the most of his ever-shrinking spare time at school.  One of the latter had been the recommendation that Harry carry a lined notepad or similar with him all the time and use any spare moments he might get here and there to jot down ideas for essays or précis notes from his textbooks, so that later he would have at least some of his work done when he had to produce the required roll of parchment.  It had proved invaluable when he worked on his Charms NEWT the previous year – until Malfoy's moronic followers dumped his entire school bag into the lake, of course.

A shadow fell over his notebook a moment or two later.

"Potter."

Harry stifled a sigh.  He knew that voice.

"This is an automated message," he said grimly to his quill.  "I'm sorry, but Harry Potter can't speak to you just now.  Please leave a message and he'll get back to you."

"I'm starting to think people are right," Anthony Goldstein said, taking a seat next to him on the wall.  "You're a bit nuts, Potter, you know that?"

"Yeah, I know.  I have this barmy idea that getting my Transfiguration essay to McGonagall on time is a worthwhile goal."

Tony grinned.  "It's not like you to have a sense of humour.  Did you have a good summer?"

Harry gave him an incredulous look.  "That wasn't humour, Goldstein, it was _sarcasm_."

"It was a nice try," the other youth said, amused.  "You can manage the essay later, I'm sure.  Right now I need to talk to you."

Harry was annoyed.  "Is that an order, Mr. Head Boy Sir?"

"Why, do you respond to orders, Harry?"  The look in Tony's eyes suggested that he'd just been offered an opening on a silver salver.

"Only by ignoring them," Harry retorted.  "What do you want, Goldstein?"

Then he could have thumped himself for giving him another opening.  Why did this keep happening all of a sudden?  This was great, just great … bad enough that he'd mentally ogled Amy Snodgrass on the train.  He did _not_ need Tony Goldstein getting ideas, especially not ideas that involved Head Boy/Bad Boy scenarios.  Ron would hit the roof if he found out. 

Tony's sly smile said volumes, but he came to the point.  "According to my predecessor, it's traditional for the Head Boy and Head Girl to negotiate with the leader of the Slytherins if they want as little trouble during the year as possible."

Harry had to process this for a moment.  " _Granger_ negotiate with anyone for good behaviour?" he said sceptically.

"Not really.  That's why it's me talking to you."

Harry stared at him blankly.  "Why?"

Tony stared back.  "Because there's a rumour going around that you're leading Slytherin this year?"

"There is?"  His brain caught up with the rest of Hogwarts.  "Oh – that.  Well, that's the general idea but it might not go exactly to plan."

Tony gave him a look of mingled amusement and exasperation.  "What on earth does that mean?"

"There's Malfoy, remember?"

"I wouldn't be having this conversation if Malfoy was still leading them," Tony remarked.

"He might yet," Harry said flatly.  "It's not really decided."

There was a pause.

"I think you need to make your mind up whether you're leading them or not," Tony said finally, eyeing him.  "If you're not sure what you want to do, someone could take advantage that.  Especially Malfoy."

"No offence, but you're a Ravenclaw," Harry said irritably.  "What would you know about it?"

"I don't have to be a Slytherin to know that being wishy-washy about leadership gives your opponent an advantage.  Wake up, Potter!  If you're going to do it, _do it_ , or make it clear to everyone that you're not going to."  Tony's look of exasperation was tinged with annoyance now.  "Frankly, I was amazed when I heard you were in the running.  I didn't think being in charge was your sort of thing."

"Yeah, well it wasn't exactly my idea," Harry muttered.

"Rumours like that don't get around unless you've done something to encourage them.  And obviously people think you have it in you, or there wouldn't have been that performance at your table last night.  You seemed confident enough then – what's the problem now?"

 _I don't want to be in charge.  I don't want to be responsible for all of Slytherin's behaviour._

He was not about to say that to Tony Goldstein.

"What did you want to discuss?" Harry asked, pinning his smooth, inscrutable face back on with an effort.

Tony gave him a wary look.  "You'll take charge?"

"I'm not promising anything, Goldstein.  If you don't like that, go talk to Malfoy instead."

"Fine."  Tony sighed.  "Here's what Granger and I are asking …."

 

xXx

 

"Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown, Harry?" Professor Dumbledore remarked, peering over the top of his half-moon spectacles.

"Sir?"  Harry halted in the middle of the Headmaster's office and eyed him warily.

"That was a very heavy sigh you gave as you walked through the door," Dumbledore said, "and you walk as though you carry the world on your shoulders.  Is leadership of your peers not to your liking?"

Did everyone in the world know about the power-struggle in Slytherin?

"I haven't been leading anyone, Sir," Harry told him firmly.

"Have you not?"  The Headmaster gave him a very penetrating look for a moment, then smiled brightly.  "My mistake!  Come - join me in my sitting room.  I shall try not to keep you from your Transfiguration essay for too long."

Now _that_ was just plain annoying.  Harry knew perfectly well that his mental shields were locked tight and his employment of Occlumency was something he now did almost without thinking about it.  Dumbledore couldn't possibly have picked that detail out of his mind, so how on earth had he known?

"Do you like Transfiguration?" Dumbledore asked, as he led the way into his little sitting room and invited Harry to take a seat by the empty fireplace.  "It was my subject, you know."

"It's okay," Harry replied guardedly.  He wasn't as nuts about it as Sirius, but it was pretty interesting and he found it more so now that he could see overlaps with Animation.

"Your father was a very keen Transfiguration student."  Dumbledore waved his wand over the little table between the two of them and a tea service appeared, steam issuing from the spout of the teapot.  Another wave and the pot and milk jug began to pour themselves into two china cups.  "Brilliant in his own way, like your godfather Sirius, although I remember them being very restless and impatient of the necessary stages of study.  And quite fearless of the consequences.  Perhaps you share your mother's preference for Charms?"

The words "restless and impatient" were chiming well with Harry's mood at that moment.  "I don't mind Charms."

Light blue eyes studied him.  "I should think you are quite tired of people drawing comparisons between you and your parents.  I can recall being told when I was a young man that I was just like my own father, and being rather cross about it because I knew very well that I was nothing at all like him except in appearance.  I am, of course, entirely myself, should you be in any doubt upon that point."

Harry stared at the professor, perplexed, and belatedly realised that this was a joke he was being invited to share.  He smiled reluctantly.

"People seem to think it a compliment to compare a person to their forebears, and in fairness to the majority, it is very often taken that way," Dumbledore continued.  He handed Harry his cup.  "Myself, I believe it is more likely an obscure means of reassurance for most people.  One likes to think that one knows a person and understands what makes them tick, and there is comfort in the sense of connection between generations.  That is, of course, the purpose of traditions - a shared sense of continuity in values.

"So perhaps I should first reassure you, Harry, that you are just like your ancestors, whilst qualifying the statement by adding that you are entirely unique.  I find it a pleasing notion that neither statement negates the other, don't you?"

"Um ...."

"But you will be more concerned to know the purpose of this meeting, I'm sure," Dumbledore said gently.  "Did you bring to school the books I asked you to bring in your admissions letter?"

"Yes, Sir ...." 

Harry bent to take them from his bag, but Dumbledore forestalled him with a shake of his head.

"You shan't need them today, dear boy.  This is just a little chat to establish our future programme."

"Sir?"  Harry looked at him warily.

"In addition to your lessons in Animation with Professor Flitwick, you will also be taking lessons under my supervision," the Headmaster said.

While this wasn't entirely unexpected, Harry still felt a twinge of dismay.  So much for his extra free time.

"What will you be teaching me, Professor?"

"A number of useful subjects, I dare say," Dumbledore replied, looking at Harry over the top of his spectacles as though he knew exactly what the teenager was thinking.  "And I shall not be your only instructor.  Petuarius Pettifer has kindly agreed to come here to continue your duelling practice."

Oh.  Well, that wasn't so bad.  However ....

"My letter said I should bring a copy of _Exploring The Pathways Of The Mind_ , Sir," Harry ventured.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said readily.  "Have you read it?"

"Some of it.  Are you going to teach me Legilimancy, Professor?"

"It could prove a useful skill for you, Harry, and it is traditionally taught alongside Occlumency.  I think, however, that you and I need to have a little chat before we proceed."

The wariness returned full force.  "Sir?"

"Legilimancy is too dangerous, invasive and personal a skill to simply teach it to any student of aptitude who wishes to learn," Dumbledore said, still watching Harry over the top of his spectacles.  There was no humour in his expression anymore, only a searching look.  "You will have noticed, of course, that neither Legilimancy nor Occlumancy are offered on the syllabus at Hogwarts.  They have not been offered as subjects, even to advanced students, for over a hundred years although it is, of course, quite possible for a determined student to find instruction elsewhere.  Why do you think that is?"

If he hadn't known Dumbledore better, Harry might have been inclined to wonder if this was a trick question.  Instead he felt mildly insulted.

"You can't have just anyone poking around in people's minds, of course," he replied, adding belatedly, "Sir."

"Well, quite so."  Dumbledore took a sip of his tea and put his cup down.  "While it would be impossible for anyone to accurately predict the future actions of another, one may make an educated guess at the personality traits - or flaws - of a student that might lead them to abuse the power Legilimancy grants the user.  Nevertheless, it is a risky judgement to make.  Besides, it is a simple fact, Harry, that few persons of your own age can be considered entirely reliable where such a skill is concerned.  Temptation is so much more tempting when one is young."

"You think I might use it on someone like Malfoy," Harry said, deciding to cut to the chase.

"Do you think you might have a reason to do so?" the Headmaster asked mildly.

Harry could think of quite a few reasons.  Articulating them seem a little redundant though.

"Let us say that I can envisage a number of scenarios where temptation might prove very difficult for you to withstand," Dumbledore suggested, when the silence became prolonged.  "I am not unaware of Mr. Malfoy's talent for offering provocation - indeed, I am aware of that ability in a number of your fellow pupils.  I am also only too aware of your altered position in Slytherin's social hierarchy this year.  In offering you the potential ability to invade another's mind, I know only too well that I also offer you a weapon to wield against your ... opponents."

Harry wasn't stupid enough to protest that he wouldn't do that.  He was intelligent and self-aware enough to know that he couldn't tell what he would do until he was faced with a given situation.  And he wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he couldn't be tempted.

"What do you want me to say, Sir?" he asked, after a moment.

"I don't _want_ you to say anything simply because you might think those are the words I want to hear," Dumbledore replied.  "What I should infinitely prefer is that you _think_ about the weapon you are being offered.  More than that, Harry, I would like you to think about the situation you have voluntarily walked into with your own House-mates."

"I _have_ thought about it," Harry said, stung.

"Indeed?"

"And I talked to Sirius."

"I am aware of that.  Your arguments mostly served to satisfy him, if not entirely to allay his fears."  Dumbledore paused.  "You should know that he and Remus have expressed considerable concerns to me about you on that head."

They had?  Harry felt a twinge of annoyance.  He could look after himself - what did they think he did for three years before they took him in, and ten years before that while he lived in the same house as his cousin Dudley?

"I did think about not coming back to school when I heard about Malfoy," he muttered.  "It all seemed a bit ... well ... trivial after everything I've done over the holiday."

"Your experiences here at school are not without value," Dumbledore said, regarding him thoughtfully.  "Remember that the people you struggle to co-exist with now will grow up to be the people you will have to co-exist with as an adult, by one means or another.  Besides, it is a great deal easier to provide you with the training you need here at Hogwarts."

"In secret," Harry said discontentedly.

"Inconvenient, I agree, but you will need every advantage we can furnish you with.  Which brings me to another matter I should discuss with you.  I know Sirius has already mentioned this to you, but I cannot over-emphasise the need for you to conceal the full extent of your abilities from your fellow pupils, Harry."

Harry stifled a sigh.  "Is this about what happened on the train?" he asked, resigned.

The lurking twinkle reappeared in Dumbledore's eyes.

"An intelligent young woman, Miss Snodgrass," he observed gravely.  "Quite charming."

"Hm," Harry said noncommittally.  Nothing on earth would ever persuade him to discuss Amy Snodgrass's "charms" with the Headmaster of all people.

"She is more observant and less suspicious than Mr. Nott."  Harry's grunt this time was decidedly scornful.  "To be able to perform a controlled levitation charm from a distance of more than two feet without a wand is a notable achievement for any wizard, especially on an object as cumbersome as a heavy book bag," Dumbledore continued.  "Nevertheless, I would prefer that you censor such displays in future.  Miss Snodgrass almost certainly recognised the significance of what you did, but she wisely kept her own counsel upon the matter.  Mr. Nott chose to talk to his friends."

"Did they believe him?" Harry asked, not bothering to question how Dumbledore knew any of this.  He already knew about the 'bodyguards' on the train after all.

"Fortunately you succeeded in making him feel extremely foolish, so that by the time he returned to his own carriage he had already decided to exaggerate the incident.  I understand that Mr. Malfoy believes you to possess some manner of magical trick or device invented by the Weasley twins, which may be easily hidden in a sleeve or palm of the hand."

"That explains why they were trying to break into my trunk last night."

"Indeed?  Well, I feel sure you thwarted them."

Harry looked at the Headmaster and a reluctant smile dawned.  "Something like that, Sir."

"Remus Lupin must be one of the few people of our acquaintance capable of removing the venom sacs on a Rat-Eating Funnel Spider without fully defanging it or suffering fatal consequences," Dumbledore noted.  "De-venoming is rarely carried out for that reason - even stunning the spider is a risky procedure, for insects and animals may react unpredictably to Stunning Spells.  The associated risk makes it financially unviable.  More tea?"

"She keeps the mice down," Harry explained.

To his relief the Headmaster chuckled.  "I'm sure she does.  All the same, Harry - choose your methods of controlling others wisely.  Fear is a double-edged sword, especially among your Slytherin brethren, and may not achieve your ends.  More than that, I would not wish you to grow into the kind of person I believe you would otherwise hold in contempt."

Sirius had said something very similar before the end of the holiday.  Harry understood perfectly well the point both men were trying to make and the fears behind it, but he was reluctant to offer assurances that might restrict his ability to deal with the leadership situation in Slytherin.  After all, it was he who had to live there, not them.

"I shall not ask you to make promises you may feel unable to keep," Dumbledore said, once again displaying that eerie and annoying talent for guessing Harry's thoughts.  "You are a man grown now and must take counsel of your own best judgement, with all the attendant risks that implies.  But if I am to teach you so dangerous and restricted a skill as Legilimancy, I think I must ask for some assurances of your conduct."

They looked at each other for a long moment.  Harry wasn't sure what the professor wanted him to say.

"I must ask you to give me your most solemn word, as a gentleman wizard and the head of an ancient and honourable family, that you will not deliberately employ the skill of Legilimancy against your fellow pupils or professors," the Headmaster said, and the gravity of his tone held Harry completely still in his seat.  "Will you give me that assurance, Harry?"

It should have been easy to respond to this; plenty of Harry's peers would certainly have taken the request with a pinch of salt, to be disregarded later at will if they wished.  But Dumbledore knew him too well.  A promise was a promise to Harry, even if the word itself wasn't used.  Too many promises to him had been broken in the past for him to treat them lightly.

Not to use Legilimancy against other people here at Hogwarts?  It would be an undeniable advantage over the likes of Malfoy, but - Harry remembered how it felt when Voldemort invaded his mind, when Snape did it, the sensation of 'sticky fingers' rummaging through his thoughts while he was powerless to stop them.

He wasn't sure that he could do that to someone else.  Knowing the things that lurked even in his own mind, he wasn't sure that he _wanted_ to do that to someone else.  Double-edged sword indeed.

"You have my word, Professor," he said, and a tension that he hadn't realised lay between them suddenly relaxed.

"Thank you, Harry.  I know you don't give it lightly."  Dumbledore inclined his head respectfully.  "In return, I give you my solemn word that I shall not abuse your trust during our lessons to invade your privacy or, indeed, any of your thoughts without your express permission.  I'm sure I need not tell you that the process will involve the lowering of certain defences on both our parts.  I hope that this idea does not cause you too much discomfort."

"I don't mind, Sir."  Harry didn't bother to add that he was used to it by now - Professor Snape certainly hadn't bothered with a similar courtesy during his Occlumency lessons.

"Excellent!"  Professor Dumbledore waved a hand and a dish of bite-sized cakes slid towards Harry.  "Now, one final detail of our private curriculum.  I'm pleased to note that your mental defences have strengthened to such a degree that you seem able to repel even quite subtle attacks without even giving them much regard.  This is truly an achievement, one which will be of great benefit to you.  Nevertheless, there is an aspect of your connection to Lord Voldemort which cannot be entirely thwarted via Occlumency.  I speak, of course, of the debilitating discomfort you experience when you are physically in his presence."

Harry hadn't thought much about that, but it was true.  The mental attacks were almost nothing compared to the excruciating physical pain that radiated outwards from his scar when Voldemort was anywhere nearby - especially if the Dark wizard was actually concentrating on him.

"Unfortunately there are no magical disciplines we can employ to lessen this effect," Dumbledore said.  "Occlumency only ensures that he cannot take advantage of your pain to mentally assault you.  Nor can I explain why the painful effects seem to affect only you.  Possibly Lord Voldemort _is_ affected but has learned to put aside pain when he chooses.  This would seem likely, as there are some more mundane methods that can be employed to increase one's tolerance of pain to a point where one may, perhaps, mostly ignore it.  With your permission, Harry, I believe we should work upon them together, so that when you inevitably face our adversary again you will not be incapacitated."

Harry nodded vigorously, seeing the wisdom of this at once.  "Yes, Sir.  That'd be good."

"Very well."  Dumbledore finished his tea and set the cup back on the table.  "Well, I believe that concludes our little chat!  You have, of course, a very versatile and useful daily organiser which Remus purchased for you.  Our lessons will of necessity be somewhat haphazardly arranged, but your organiser will always know and should any special arrangements be necessary I shall find a suitable means of notifying you." 

He glanced up at the clock on his mantelpiece.  "Excellent.  I think you will find you still have time to do some good work on your essay before you see Professor Flitwick.  And don't forget that you still have my permission to use the various collections of books around the school, as well as the main student library."  He gave Harry a benign little smile.  "There is a small study area behind the painting on the third floor titled _Melody Mangold Dancing With Moldavian Mandrakes_ which I believe you may find particularly useful this year.  The archive, that is; the painting is of little use to anyone which is, of course, why it hangs in that corridor instead of somewhere more visible."

 

xXx

 

Harry didn't have time to locate Melody Mangold's disappointing picture that evening, unfortunately.  He hurried back to the Slytherin dormitories (mostly deserted at that hour), replaced the books he would be studying under Dumbledore's tuition in his trunk, grabbed his Transfiguration texts, parchment and quills, and headed for the library.  He managed a solid hour of study before dinner, then it was time to retrieve the bundle of Animation books he'd brought from home and hurry to Professor Flitwick's private office.

He found the Charms Professor almost bouncing with anticipation when he got there.

"Excellent, excellent, Mr. Potter!"  Professor Flitwick gestured to a side table.  "Do put the books here.  I see - quite a selection of volumes you have!  Of course, Gaius Black's work was - but never mind, we shall soon see."

Harry had brought all the books Professor Dumbledore had deemed suitable to leave in his possession after the discovery of Gaius Black's hidden study, plus the handful he'd found in the main library.  Professor Flitwick lighted upon the volume about manual animation and golems at once. 

"This volume is prohibited by the International Brotherhood of Master Animators for all but students at the highest level, Mr. Potter," he said in his high, squeaky voice.  "The subject matter is considered undesirable and in any case is not true Animation at all.  Have you read it?"

Under the circumstances Harry thought it was best to be, if not totally honest, then _mostly_ honest.  "Some of it, Sir."

"Hm.  Curiosity is natural for someone of your talent.  Nevertheless, this book contains information about procedures which are strictly prohibited under international magical law.  Do you understand why?"

"I think so, Sir."  Harry hesitated, but at Flitwick's encouraging nod he continued.  "It explains how to make golems and the same methods could maybe be used on ... dead things.  Bodies."

"Precisely.  Use of the remains of human beings for the purpose of Animation of any kind is expressly forbidden in our world.  I'm sure I don't need to explain why."

"It's revolting," Harry said, and he didn't need to feign the disgust in his voice.

"It is morally indefensible and utterly repugnant to any right-thinking witch or wizard," Flitwick corrected him, but he didn't seem to disapprove of Harry's description either.  "It breaches a great many of our laws besides those specifically relating to the practice of Animation as a discipline.  It is _very_ important that you understand that, Mr. Potter, and more important still that you obey the law.  As you grow in your knowledge and understanding of our shared discipline, your standing among our brethren will be determined as much by your reputation as a responsible and dedicated Animator as it will by your skill."

"'Our brethren?'" Harry repeated, surprised.

The little professor nodded emphatically.  "Yes, indeed!  The International Brotherhood of Master Animators.  You are aware, of course, that I am the current Grand Master of the Brotherhood?  I must tell you, Mr. Potter, that I have nominated you to the Brethren as someone well worthy of Novice status among us.  You show such promising talent already that I feel sure there can be no objection, especially as I am overseeing your education in the discipline personally, with Dumbledore's blessing."

"Th-thank you, Sir."  Harry was astonished and more than a little dubious about this, although he was careful to hide his reaction.  It didn't seem right to tell Professor Flitwick that he doubted the other members would be so keen to have Harry Potter ranked among them.  Although ….  "Professor, was Sirius's father a member of the Brotherhood?"

There was a pause.  Professor Flitwick nervously tidied the pile of books in front of him. 

"Gaius Black was at one time the Grand Master of the Brethren," he admitted reluctantly.  "The customary term of office is twenty years; most Grand Masters are invited to undertake at least a second term.  Black was not."  He raised his eyes to Harry's.  "I would prefer not to explain why, Mr. Potter."

"It's okay, Sir.  I think I can guess."

"It was not so much his personal practices," Flitwick said with some difficulty, "although those were reprehensible enough.  No, it was the abuses of power – his use of the ancient and respected office he held to attempt to force changes in International Law that should never – _never_ – have been tabled, bringing all of us and our discipline into disrepute."

This enlightened Harry a little about something.  "Sirius seemed to imply that it was a Dark Art when I first asked him about it," he said, "but Remus said it wasn't, only that it had Dark applications like all magic."

"All magic may be subverted, Mr. Potter," the professor replied and he seemed to pull himself together.  "Permit me to assure you that Animation has a long and respectable history behind it and it was only through the ill-judged actions of Gaius Black that this reputation has recently been tarnished.  It is my work and the work of the Brethren to restore it to its proper place in the eyes of the world.  And when you become one of us, my boy, it will become your duty too.  Now – shall we look at the rest of these books?"

This was a tedious process and it became clear before long that Professor Flitwick was – not disappointed precisely, but clearly looking for something that wasn't there.

"These are all the books you found at the Manor directly relating to Animation?" he asked, fixing Harry with a sharp eye.  "You are quite sure?  There were no personal notebooks or records?  Gaius Black would not have kept his most important journals readily on display, but Dumbledore told me that you located a hidden study!"

Harry was within a heartbeat of telling the Charms professor that the Headmaster had removed certain notebooks before Harry himself could get his hands on them, when it occurred to him to wonder why Flitwick didn't already know this.  Sirius had said Dumbledore would give the books to Flitwick, hadn't he?  If Flitwick didn't even know about them, then where were they?

"These are the only ones I saw, Sir," he said, if not with complete honesty then at least truthfully.

"Hm."  The little professor didn't sound entirely convinced.  "His work was highly experimental and, I have no doubts, also highly illegal, Mr. Potter.  Given these facts, I find it unlikely in the extreme that there are no records at all of his work at Black Manor."  He paused as though waiting for Harry to say something, but as Harry himself had no idea where they might be now, there was nothing he could tell him.  "Very well.  But I would ask you, the next time you write to him, to remind your godfather that should he locate his father's papers, they should be surrendered either to myself or one of his contacts among the Aurors.  Keeping them on the property is liable to get him into a great deal of trouble.  They should certainly not be kept anywhere where _you_ might have access to them – dear me, no!  Simply being caught in possession of such books will damage your reputation as a wizard and Animator and could end in legal proceedings which I would not wish upon any pupil of mine!"

Harry felt a twinge of annoyance at this but suppressed it, reminding himself that Flitwick was a kindly teacher and one of the few with whom he'd built up a positive rapport over the years.  He probably thought he was looking out for Harry, not patronising him, and if he was the head of this Brotherhood of Animators he was bound to think of the situation in terms that related to its interests.

Professor Flitwick finally finished examining the books and put them to one side in a tidy pile, with a sigh.  Then he smiled encouragingly at Harry.

"Very well, Mr. Potter, shall we take up where we left off over the holiday?  I believe you have some interesting new projects to show me!"

Relieved at the change of subject, Harry quickly produced the spell-shrunken box that contained his dragon puppet and the half-finished skeleton of a model snake he'd been working on towards the end of the holiday.

"I managed to fix the dragon's wing, Professor, but I'm not sure if the glass beads were good enough for its eyes.  It can fly but it's still really difficult to control …."

 


	2. Chapter 2

The first day had been exhausting and those that followed didn't let up the pressure on Harry.  He had three lessons and one free period each day, and in that he was luckier than most, although with the extra sessions some evenings Harry wasn't so sure of that.  He had managed, with some difficulty, to schedule Quidditch try-outs for the second weekend after (which was more than a little early in his opinion, but the other three teams stole a march on him by booking the pitch for the three weekends following), but by Thursday he was neck-deep in homework and ready to throttle his housemates one by one from Malfoy downwards for a score of different reasons all of which had combined to interfere with the little study time he could scrape together.  The common room was a zoo and he was already fed up of intervening when the first years got picked on.

It was only at that point that he remembered Professor Dumbledore's parting words about the study by the painting on the third floor and he resolved to seek it out as soon as he had a suitable space where he could search for it without people wondering where he was.  (Which seemed to be happening quite a lot, and he didn't think he would ever get used to it – why couldn't people leave him alone as they generally had before?)

It did occur to him that it might be a good place to meet Ron in secret, which was the one thing he hadn't achieved yet.

So on the Friday afternoon he decided to skip lunch.  Instead he went from Divination to the kitchens to ask the elves there about the location of _Melody Mangold Dancing With Moldavian Mandrakes._ (Harry had learned early on in his school career that if you wanted to find places in the castle, the elves were often the best people to ask.)  They were only too happy to help him and Harry shortly found himself on his way to the third floor in Dobby's company, and carrying a very acceptable egg mayonnaise roll for his lunch into the bargain.

The third floor was one of the lesser-used areas of the school and seemed to contain a lot of empty rooms in less than standard configurations.  Harry was aware, vaguely, that Hogwarts had once offered a much broader syllabus to its pupils and that in addition it had run a very select post-NEWT academy for exceptional students, besides a number of the resident professors accepting apprentices in their particular disciplines.  The academy had ceased to exist at the turn of the century; Mr. Pettifer had told Harry quite casually that he had been one of the last pupils to study there.  Apprenticeships were, technically, still a possibility but in practice they too had died out very early in the twentieth century, at Hogwarts at least.

Harry wondered idly what had been the cause of this decline in education.  In this at least Voldemort couldn't be blamed, or not directly anyway.  Some senior wizards and witches still took apprentices outside of the formal school system – Sirius's father had done so by all accounts, as had Lord Voldemort himself during his first rise to power – but it had been made clear to Harry that these were nearly always proponents of arts that had, at the very least, a doubtful reputation and could not therefore be learned in any other way.  The majority of young witches and wizards left school after their NEWTs and were apprenticed in a more formal manner to specific professions, such as healing, banking and the civil service.

Whatever the reason for the decline, these were probably the classrooms that had once been used to teach such esoteric subjects as Occlumency, Legilimancy, Geomancy, Numismatism, Intexometry, Cartology, Cantology, Somnology and Alchemy, not to mention Animation.  Dobby led Harry past them without a sideways glance until they reached the end of a long corridor and turned the corner.  Around the corner was a short flight of spiral stairs and at the top was a small landing with a door, an arrow loop in the outer wall, and a painting that was about a foot and a half square hanging on the wall. 

"Here is the painting Harry Potter is wishing to see, Sir!" Dobby said, pleased to have been of use.

Harry stared at the picture.  It showed a young woman in a long, frilly frock prancing in a woodland glade with half a dozen mature mandrake plants.  Music was provided by a faun who sat on a large toadstool and played a two-barrelled pipe, and the woman and the faun both wore fluffy earmuffs.  Harry wasn't surprised that Dumbledore had described it as being useless; it wasn't visually pleasing and was in fact quite ridiculous - why would anyone want to dance with mandrakes and how could the woman hear the music to dance if she was wearing earmuffs?

Mercifully, although the characters in the picture moved, it was silent.  Harry suspected this had something to do with the thick lacquered frame which was also shaped like a pair of earmuffs.

"Thanks, Dobby," he said, dragging his eyes away from it.  "This door must lead to the room Professor Dumbledore told me about.  Is it locked, do you think?"

But when he touched the ring handle cautiously, there was the gentle tingle of a ward across his palm and it swung open.  With a certain amount of caution lingering from his adventures at Black Manor over the summer, Harry stood on the threshold and peered inside.  He could see a set of study carrels with upright chairs, the end of a bookcase and, built into one wall, a thing that looked like a cross between a dumb waiter and a writing desk.

"May Dobby serve the great Harry Potter in any other way?" Dobby asked anxiously from behind him.

"No – thanks, Dobby, this is great.  This is what I was looking for," Harry replied distractedly.  Then he remembered something.  "Thank your mates for the sandwich, yeah?  I really appreciate it.  And the crumpets at breakfast."

Dobby beamed.  "We is all very, very happy to serve Harry Potter!  And Dobby will tell Maffy that her Master is being very well cared for by us!"

Harry jerked around to stare at him, stunned to hear the name of the elf-nurse who had cared for him as a baby.  "Maffy?" he said.  "What – how do you know Maffy, Dobby?"

"Maffy and Dilly is coming here before Harry Potter returned, Sir," Dobby explained earnestly.  "They is wanting to know who we is who is taking care of their Master.  We is happy to see them, Sir, because we is understanding that they is wanting the best for their Harry Potter."

Christ.  The Rose House elves had gone nuts.  Although ….  Harry had to admit that it should have occurred to him before that Maffy would storm Hogwarts and demand that the house-elves there give an accounting of themselves to her.  Crikey.  Dilly had probably gone along to make sure she didn't go too far and start a riot in the school kitchens.

"She wasn't rude to any of you, was she?" Harry asked, concerned.  "Maffy, I mean.  I know Dilly wouldn't be."

"Maffy is being _very_ rude to us, Harry Potter Sir," Dobby said happily.  "We is all very pleased to know that the great Harry Potter has house-elves who know their duty to him, Sir!"

Harry gave up and let it go.  If the kitchen elves and Dobby were happy to be insulted by his nurse, it wasn't his business to upset them by overreacting.  But he was still astonished that Maffy and Dilly had come to the school at all. 

"Look, I don't have a lot of time, Dobby, so I'm just going to have a poke around in here.  Okay?"

"If Dobby cannot help Harry Potter anymore, he will return to the kitchens and make macaroons."

Harry shot him a grin.  "If I'd known you were making macaroons, I'd have got someone else to show me the way up here!"

With Dobby gone, Harry slowly entered the room and looked around, interested.  There were four quite spacious study carrels, arranged two on each side facing each other with a low screen between them to give privacy.  A window opposite the doorway allowed plenty of light into the circular room, and the wall on the right of the entrance held a set of eight built-in bookshelves containing a small collection of assorted textbooks and notebooks and a shelf full of writing supplies.  The books barely took up one shelf by themselves; the rest of the shelves were empty.

On the wall to the left of the door was the odd escritoire-dumb waiter object he'd seen.  Harry put his book bag and sandwich down in one of the carrels and went to examine it.

It was certainly an odd contraption, with two sets of doors; one tall pair set into the wall above the desk part which was enclosed with the second pair of sloping doors.  Harry opened this pair carefully and found that it _was_ a sort of desk although all it contained was a small shelf full of plain little cards about the size of a business card, an inkwell, a quill and a big ledger-like book.  Perplexed, he opened the book at random and found that it was a kind of index:

 

 **_Author:_ ** _Diddler, Atheneus_

 **_Title:_ ** _Advanced Numismatics For Pawnbrokers_

 **_Current Location:_ ** _Main Library, Restricted Section ..._

 

Puzzled, Harry closed the desk part again and opened the doors into the wall.  It _was_ a dumb waiter.  A loose, empty wooden box containing two shelves was set into the wall.  Harry could tell it was supposed to move because of the tiny gap between the shelves and the frame.

He closed the doors and glanced at his watch.  He didn't have much time if he wanted to eat his sandwich and get to Potions.  He had another free period after that and could always come back, although there was something about the dumb-waiter-desk thing that was tugging at his memory and he couldn't work out what it was.  Possibly Ron might know, and if he didn't then Granger probably would.  Besides, apart from Divination – and really there weren't any opportunities even there – he hadn't had a single chance to so much as talk to Ron all week.  This place was well off the beaten track; it could be a good meeting place for them.  The only problem was in making contact.

Harry sat down at the carrel and unwrapped his sandwich, taking a huge bite, then tore a sheet out of the back of one of his small notebooks and scribbled a message.  That done, he waved it in the air to dry it and stuffed it into the pocket of his robe.  He'd find a way to deliver it inconspicuously.  Munching on his sandwich, he looked around again and his eyes fell on the books on the shelves.  They looked oddly familiar.

Curious, Harry got up and went to look.  There were leather-bound text books with no titles on the covers, marble-boarded books with spiral-bound spines, notebooks of various sizes tied shut with strings or leather thongs ....  He picked up one of the spiral-bound books and opened it.  Unusually for a wizard book, the pages were made of thin, lined paper and it was full of handwritten notes in a slanting script, the black ink fading a little to brown and the pages turning a soft yellow with age.  There was a name written inside one of the hard board covers: _Gaius S. Black_.

Harry's stomach did a flip.  _These_ were the other books from the hidden workrooms at Black Manor, the ones that Dumbledore had removed!  The ones Flitwick was looking for .... 

Harry closed the notebook sharply and put it back on the shelf, staring blankly in front of him.

Dumbledore had taken the books from Black Manor, but hadn't given them to Professor Flitwick.  Dumbledore had deliberately directed him, Harry, to this room where the books were on the shelf in plain sight.  This room was in a part of the castle where almost no one but the house-elves ever came anymore, and it had a door handle that tingled when Harry touched it; a door that was probably warded to allow him entry.

There was only one, simple conclusion to be drawn from all this and that was that Dumbledore had meant him to use this well-hidden little room to carry out private - perhaps even illicit - studies; in particular, to read the books that Professor Flitwick had said he mustn't read.

"Some Gryffindor!" was Harry's first muttered reaction, amused at the Headmaster's sneaky ways. 

Then he suffered an unfamiliar qualm.  He liked Professor Flitwick and respected him; he didn't like the idea of having to deliberately deceive him, especially on such an important matter.  Flitwick was sponsoring him to membership of an important and well-respected professional body, after all, and things like that could make all the difference to his future.

On the other hand, whether he actually _had_ a future would probably depend upon him learning a great many things that would normally be well outside the spectrum of study for any normal pupil.  It would almost certainly involve him using unorthodox, possibly illegal magics to defeat his enemy.  It wouldn't do to be squeamish about these things.

Except ... Harry found he didn't like the idea of losing people's respect.  He didn't particularly like being the object of Professor Snape's contempt, and it wasn't as though he really cared one way or the other what Snape thought of him.  But he would care if it was kindly Professor Flitwick.  And besides, it wasn't just Flitwick he had to worry about; there were other people whose opinion mattered to him now.  There was Sirius and Remus ... Mr. Pettifer ... Bill Weasley and Mrs. Tonks ... Ron ....

"Dammit," he muttered angrily, staring at the books.  Why did this keep happening to him?  He didn't need all these dilemmas all the time, the constant questioning of whether he was doing the right thing or not.  He felt pretty sure that life had once been simpler, when he'd consulted no one's conscience but his own, but these days he only had to pick up the wrong book and a dozen voices started clamouring in his head.  Worse still, half of those voices were in direct or indirect opposition to the other half!  Why wasn't there a nice, clear line drawn in the sand where he could see it?  What did people _want_ from him?

And with a sudden jolt he remembered that the time was running on.  A quick glance at his watch confirmed his worst fears, and he had to snatch up his bag and empty sandwich wrapper and make a run for it.

Potions beckoned.  The moral maze would have to wait.

 

xXx

 

The crowd heading for the Great Hall at dinner was like a river in full flow; small wonder that there were accidents ….

 _Crash._

"Ouch!  _Careful_ , Potter!"  Hermione Granger stood on one foot, tucking the trodden one up behind her, and balanced herself against Ginny Weasley's shoulder.  "Ow!  My books - my foot!"

Harry raised a mocking brow at her.  "So sorry, your Head Girliness.  Want me to kiss it better?"

Ginny glared at him.  "In your dreams, pervert!" 

"I can deal with him, thank you, Ginny."  Hermione gave the other girl's shoulder a quick, warning squeeze before she turned a sharp glare of her own onto Harry.  "Any more harassment from you, Potter, and you'll be sorry.  Are you that desperate for a detention?"

He was busy charming her fallen books into a neat pile that hovered in front of her, but when he looked up his grin was just barely on the sunny side of saturnine.  "Only if it means I can be alone with you, sweetness."

Ginny made a noise like a snarling cat, but Hermione only huffed impatiently. 

"Pathetic.  And not even original.  My books, please - _thank_ you.  Come on, Ginny."

"She didn't even take points," a dry voice said into Harry's ear as the two girls walked away.  "Must be love."

"You have some really horrible ideas," Harry told Blaise, just as dryly, and the other boy gave him a tiny half-grin and a shrug.

"Oh, I don't know - she's not bad looking for a Muggleborn."

"And since his bloodline is already polluted beyond repair, he might just as well marry into a pigsty," Malfoy's voice said sneeringly from behind them.  "Like should always marry like, my father says."

Blaise stiffened, but Harry had put up with this sort of thing for too long to be moved by it.

 _"Pathetic!"_ he said, pitching his voice to mimic Hermione's.  _"And not even original!_   Tell me, Malfoy, do you even have any opinions of your own, or do you just endlessly recycle the tripe your old man dribbles out with his dinner?"

"You keep your filthy mouth off my father, Potter!"

"Or what?" Harry demanded.  "You'll get one of your toy-boys to beat me up?"  He eyed Vincent Crabbe, who was going through his usual routine of cracking his knuckles menacingly.  "Christ, Crabbe - why do you even bother trying to learn magic if all you're going to do is threaten to smash someone's face in?  My Muggle cousin's more frightening than you."

"Are you comparing a member of an old, pureblooded family to one of your filthy Muggle relatives, Potter?" Malfoy demanded furiously.

"He catches on quick, doesn't he?" Harry said to Blaise.  He gave Malfoy a look of mocking commiseration.  "Yeah, it hurts me too to have to admit Dudley's smarter than Crabbe.  But you know what they say, Malfoy - that's truth for you."

"You - "

"Okay, break it up everyone!"  Anthony Goldstein arrived on the scene, pushing his way through the small crowd of interested pupils who were watching the confrontation.  "Potter, Malfoy - five points each from Slytherin for trying to start a fight in a public area.  Zabini, another five points for not intervening.  As a prefect you're supposed to _stop_ this kind of thing, not stand there and watch."

"It doesn't end here, Potter!" Malfoy hissed.

"Bet it does!" Harry retorted.

" _Move it,_ both of you!" Tony snapped, exasperated.

"All right, all right, don't get your bloomers in a knot, Goldstein."  Dismissing Malfoy with a shrug, Harry grabbed Blaise's elbow and pulled him into the Great Hall.

 

xXx

 

"I'm going to hand in my badge if being a prefect means I can't hex creeps like Potter," Ginny muttered savagely as she spooned boiled potatoes onto her plate.  "Honestly, I don't know what's got into Ron, hanging around with him all summer."

"Isn't this a change for you?" Hermione asked.  "I thought you fancied him.  Besides, I don't think he's as bad as he likes people to think."  She was hunting through her books carefully, giving each one a discreet shake.

Ginny gave her a sharp look, then twitched her shoulders nonchalantly and turned her attention back to her meal.  "I don't fancy him.  It sounds like he might have a new groupie in you though!"

"Unlikely."  A tiny corner of paper was sticking out from between the pages of Hermione's DADA textbook.  "I think you've been spending too much time with the twins.  You're cleverer than them; don't listen to their prejudices."  She tweaked the paper out and slipped it into her pocket before Ginny could notice.

"Well, on this occasion I happen to think they're right.  He might be quite good-looking, but he's just an arrogant little creep like the rest of the Slytherins."  Ginny passed the dish of potatoes down the table and reached for the salad bowl.

"I'm sure he loves you too.  Meanwhile, back in reality, you're still a prefect and should act accordingly."  Ginny sniffed and Hermione raised her eyes, regarding her thoughtfully.  "If you have a problem with that, you _should_ hand your badge back."

Ginny stared at her.  "It's just an opinion.  I'm allowed to hold an opinion, aren't I?"

"It's not the opinion that's the problem," Hermione said, beginning to weary of the argument.  "It's whether you act on it or not that's the problem."

Ron arrived then, looking tired and a bit fed up as he dumped his bag and sat down.

"Friday's going to be the worst day of the week, I reckon," he commented and he reached across the table to grab a crusty roll.

"Oh?" Ginny said archly.  "Didn't you have Divination this morning?  I thought that was your favourite subject."

Hermione wondered if she was going to have to take drastic action with Ginny.  Ron had never really got along well with his younger sister, but her attitude had recently stopped being funny and started teetering on the brink of spite.  It was so close to the treatment the twins meted out to their youngest brother that there was no doubt in Hermione's mind where it was coming from, and she knew from casual talk at the Burrow that George and Fred had decided they wouldn't cut Ron's new best friend any slack.  It could mean trouble if Ginny gave up her longstanding crush on Harry Potter in favour of resentment instead.

Ron, however, gave his sister a blank look and shook his head.  "I don't know what crawled up your nose and died, Gin, but for Christ's sake just yak it up or give it a rest, all right?"

"You're not the only one suffering with NEWTs classes, Ronald," she retorted.

"Yeah, right.  I'd feel your pain, if I didn't have _twice_ as much crap to deal with this year myself.  Now can I eat my dinner in peace?  Please?"

 _He's grown up,_ Hermione thought, surprised, as she watched Ron digging into his meal.  He was simply ignoring the pointed little comments Ginny kept tossing his way as she ate, whereas the previous term he'd have jumped on everything she said until they were practically pulling each other's hair out.  Maybe associating with Harry – who seemed to vacillate wildly between violent overreaction and no reaction at all – had taught him something about the need for self-control.  Matured him even.

"I need to talk to you after dinner," she said to him.

Ron's shoulders seemed to sag.  "Hermione – I've got five essays to do and I've only started on one of them …."

"It won't take long.  I have a lot of homework too, you know."

"Fine.  Where do you want meet?"

"You can drop your bag off in Gryffindor and grab your books, if you like.  We can go to the library."

"Okay."  He looked a little more cheerful.  "You can help me with my Potions essay."

Hermione fixed him with a stern look.  "No, Ron, I can't."

After dinner they headed back to Gryffindor Tower, where Ron disposed of his book bag, got changed out of his uniform into more comfortable jeans and t-shirt, and gathered together a bundle of books, parchment and a couple of quills.  On the way back down the stairs he met Hermione coming out of her own dormitory, with bag of books over one shoulder. 

"Come on then," she said, and she led the way through the common room and out of the portrait hole.

They were halfway to the library when Hermione gave him a folded piece of notepaper with his name on it.  "Here, this is for you."

"Eh?"  One look was enough for Ron to recognise Harry's handwriting and something leapt in chest.  "Where did you get this?" he asked her, a little miffed that the first concrete communication from Harry had been sent to Hermione and not him.

Hermione looked both amused and annoyed.  "He trod on my foot outside the Hall before dinner and hid it in my books while I was hopping around." 

Ron grinned at this as he unfolded the note.

 

 _Ron  -_

 _Meet me on the third floor after dinner.  There's something I need to show you._

 _H._

 

Hermione was watching his face.  "What does he say?"

Ron quickly screwed it up in his hand.  "I have to go …."

"Ron!"

He grinned over his shoulder at her.  "I'll meet you in the library later!"

"Don't you dare be late!" she called after him, exasperated.  "I won't cover for you if you're out after curfew!"

 

xXx

 

Ron couldn't remember having been to this part of the third floor before and it was echoingly empty when he finally got there.  The abandoned, silent classrooms were just a tad creepy in the early evening light.

"Where are you, Harry?" he mumbled to himself, peering into one room.  It was more of a lecture theatre than a classroom, and there was an odd series of circles chiselled into the stone floor in the centre of the room. 

"Behind you," Harry's disembodied voice said, and Ron nearly leapt out of his skin.

"Bloody hell, Harry!"  He stared around wildly.  "Not funny!  Where are you?"

The air in the middle of the corridor rippled oddly, then seemed to split ... and Harry appeared out of nowhere, briskly folding up a long length of shimmering cloth.

"Christ!  Don't do that to me!"  Then Ron blinked.  "Is that an Invisibility Cloak?  I've never even seen one before, they're supposed to cost a small fortune …."

"It's a family heirloom," Harry replied, slipping the bundle into his book-bag.  "I thought I'd told you about it.  It's pretty useful - I've been following you ever since you left Gryffindor Tower.  Luckily I don't think anyone else was."

"Why would they?" Ron said, surprised and not entirely pleased by this.

Harry looked at him and raised his brows.  "I can think of a few people who might.  It doesn't hurt to be careful, anyway.  When you come this way again take a roundabout route."

" _Am_ I coming this way again?" Ron asked, surprised.

Harry gave him an odd look.  "I thought it might be a safe place to meet – if you want to."

Now Ron felt awkward.  There was more than a touch of disappointment in Harry's tone.  "If course I do, you prat!  It's just … well, this isn't exactly the most comfortable place you could think of, is it?"

Harry managed a small smile at this.  "Yeah, but there's something pretty neat I wanted to show you.  Come on …."

He led the way down the corridor and up a small spiral staircase that Ron hadn't noticed before.

"Dumbledore told me about this place," Harry explained, when they reached the door at the top of the stairs.  "It's some kind of study."

"Door's warded," Ron noted as they passed through it.

"Yeah, I know."  But Harry went straight over to an odd-looking writing desk on the left-hand wall and opened it up.  "I've been trying to work out what this is," he said.  "I mean, this place is probably great for getting some peace and quiet to do your homework, but I reckon Dumbledore wants me to use it for some other reason.  So what do you think this is?" 

Ron stared at it.  "You're asking me?"

"Well, you've got to have more of an idea than I do," Harry pointed out. 

"I've never seen anything like it before in my life!"

"Oh.  Well … maybe you could ask Granger?"

Ron looked at Harry and felt a tickle of amusement beginning.  "Why didn't you just write her a note at the same time you wrote that one to me?"

Harry looked at him as though he was a lunatic.  "Why would I do something like that?"

"I give up.  You're nuts, Harry!"

"Well, she's your friend, not mine!"

Ron shook his head.  "I haven't had a chance to talk to you all week.  I'm not going to waste time having a fight with you now!"

Harry grinned sheepishly.  "Yeah, all right …."

There was a dithering sort of moment, then Ron dumped his things on a chair and grabbed the other boy.

"Come here, you berk …."

Considering that it was just a plain hug, it felt pretty damn good.

"How are you doing, mate?" Ron murmured into Harry's ear after a moment or two. 

"All right."  Harry leaned into him and Ron's nose twitched; the smell of burnt herbs that always hung around the Potions labs was clinging to Harry's hair and robes.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What about Malfoy?"

"He's a dick, but I reckon I can deal with him."

Ron wondered if he could.  "Everyone's talking about what's going on in Slytherin."

"Nothing's happened yet."  Harry drew back a little, frowning.

"That's what _you_ think," Ron told him.  "I overheard Goldstein laying down the law to you both on the way to dinner, you know."

Harry snorted.  "That's nothing – that's just talk.  Malfoy's pretty short on action, you know."

"What about the others?"

"Crabbe and Goyle?  They won't move without him telling them to, and if I hex 'em often enough they probably won't even do that.  And Nott's gone back to sitting on the fence I reckon."

Harry's flippant tone bothered Ron.  "You're not going to get cocky, are you, mate?"

"Too many hard surfaces in here for that, don't you reckon?" 

"Harry …."

"I missed you this week," Harry said rather forlornly.

"I know you're just trying to change the subject," Ron warned him.

"Is it working?"

Ron sighed.  "All right, I'll leave it.  But you'd better bloody well be careful, mate.  Hexing a staircase doesn't seem like being short on action to me, and I'll be pretty pissed off if you get your neck broken because of Malfoy."

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched up in his familiar half-grin.  "Promise I won't do that.  Sirius'd string me up, not to mention a load of other people."

"You'd better believe that I'll be the first in line," Ron told him, prodding him with a belligerent finger.

Harry raised his hands in surrender.  "I believe you!  Can we snog now?"

Ron rolled his eyes and tutted.  "You're such a - a _tart_ , Potter."

"Yeah, I've been hanging around with this dead easy Gryffindor bloke all summer and I've picked up a load of his bad habits ...."

 

xXx

 

Later (quite a bit later than Ron had intended), Harry showed him a couple of alternative exits from the fourth floor and watched him head back to Gryffindor Tower, before wrapping the Invisibility Cloak around himself and slipping down a set of back stairs to the dungeons.  He was grateful to the Marauders' Map, which had unexpectedly been returned to him by Sirius at the end of the summer and showed him all the useful ways in and out of the dungeons.  He paused in the corner of a tight stairwell that emerged behind one of a number of statues of Salazar Slytherin and removed the cloak, folding it up tightly and pushing it to the bottom of his book bag, before stepping out only a few feet away from the painting that hid the entrance into the Slytherin Common Room.

Only quick reflexes and the unusual direction of his approach saved him.  He felt the brush of the spell against his sleeve, recoiled, dropped and rolled, and it exploded with a silent, deadly flare of light mere inches from where he'd been standing.  The long strap of Harry's book-bag was caught up in the nimbus of the spell and he had to roll on top of it to prevent the whole bag being ripped out of his hands.  The strap was torn off and whipped up towards the ceiling; Harry looked up and was showered with fragments of torn leather.  The spelled bloomed again silently and vanished.

He was climbing unsteadily to his feet, mutilated bag in his arms, when he heard a small gasp from behind him and turned swiftly.  Daphne Greengrass was standing at the bottom of the main staircase a few feet away.  Her eyes were huge with fright.

"What was that?" she demanded in an unusually high-pitched voice.

Harry didn't answer immediately.  Instead he pulled out his wand and cautiously approached the spot where the spell had triggered.  He used a couple of revealing charms he'd learned from Bill Weasley over the summer, but there was no trace of it now, even up near the ceiling.

"Trap spell," Harry said finally, when he could trust his own voice to sound steady and calm.  "Looks like someone set up a static Sectumsempra Hex to catch ... somebody."

"You?" Daphne demanded.  "Was it meant for you, Potter?"

Harry wondered if anyone in Slytherin was capable of creating a trap spell - in itself an advanced piece of magic that wasn't routinely taught at Hogwarts - that was tuned to catch just one particular person.  He wasn't sure he could do it himself, even knowing the theory behind "directed casting", but if any of the others could it would be Draco Malfoy.  It wouldn't do to let Daphne Greengrass know that though.

"I don't think it was set for a particular person," he said, glancing at her.  "It's more likely it was set up to catch the next person heading for the door, no matter who it was.  You're out a bit late, aren't you?  Half a minute earlier and it _could_ have been you."

He could see her eyes running over the fragments of his bag's strap still scattered across the stone floor.

"What would it do to a person?"

"Slice them up a bit, by the looks of it," he replied coolly.  "That's what a Sectumsempra does."  He put his bag down on the floor and reached under his robes to unbuckle his belt.

"What are you doing?" Daphne wanted to know, looking nervous.  She still hadn't moved from her spot at the bottom of the stairs.

"Fixing my bag.  What do you think I'm doing?"  Harry pulled his belt free of his trousers and tapped it with his wand, transfiguring it into a longer, narrower strap with clasps at each end.  "A bag without a strap is pretty much useless to me, isn't it?  And it's not like there's a Hogsmeade weekend any time soon, so I'm going to have to manage until I can buy another."

"Oh."

"It's safe to go in now," he told her, watching her dither.  "I've checked - it was just a one-shot spell."

"But who do you think did it?"

Harry rolled his eyes.  "Try using your imagination - I'm sure you'll think of someone!  _If_ it was really intended for me, and it probably was."

The knowledge of the perpetrator's probable identity was written all over her face, but she didn't say the name.  "Are you going to report it?"

Harry began to grow annoyed with all the questions.  "Don't be thick, Greengrass!  Like it would do any good.  Besides, I'm not a sneak.  _You_ report it if you're that fussed, you're the prefect!"

"Hm."  But she cautiously approached the entrance and when no spell snared her, she relaxed slightly and gave the password.

"Just think, though," Harry said softly before she could step through the Common Room door.  "Even if it _was_ meant for me … half a minute earlier and it could have been you."

She hesitated, her shoulders visibly tightening - and kept going.

 

xXx

 

Over the week that followed, Harry couldn't help feeling that it was probably a good thing he wasn't the kind of person who made too many plans.  Certainly had he done so he would have ended up disappointed and frustrated, for it seemed as though he didn't have five minutes to himself, let alone time to spend with Ron.  The latter was deeply frustrating in any case and almost made Harry regret that he and Ron had developed their relationship over the holiday, for now he was missing the company and friendship – and, yes, the sex – that had brought a new dimension into a life that he hadn't previously realised had been so lacking. 

Instead he was spending a lot of time watching his housemates out of the corner of his eye, watching his own back (although there was no repeat of the slicing hex or any similar incident), and trying very hard to fit things like his new Animation lessons and projects and their necessary secrecy in around the rest of his timetable.  It was exhausting, although he ruefully noticed at one point that he was only aware of this when he actually had two minutes together where he wasn't trying to do other things.  When the second weekend finally rolled around he was grateful to contemplate getting up at the crack of dawn for something as non-academic as Quidditch.

A number of things ran through Harry's mind as he strapped his protective pads on under his Quidditch robes early on the Saturday morning, but uppermost was a concern that no one would turn up for the try-outs except the current team members.  They had all already been put on notice that their positions were up for grabs if they didn't shape up, which had caused some muted grumbling, but Harry had hoped to overhear more general comment about the trials in the Common Room than he had.  It was usually the source of considerable excitement and chatter, but this time the conversations had been far more muted and it had been impossible to tell what the overall feeling was. 

Turning to his broom bag, he unlaced it and took out his Firebolt, thinking for the hundredth time that he was damn lucky Sirius was an extravagant godparent.  The Firebolt was still _the_ international competition standard broom.  The rest of the team were flying a combination of the Nimbus 2001s that Lucius Malfoy had bought Draco a place with in their second year, and reasonably recent Comet models, which meant that collectively they were one of the best-mounted teams at Hogwarts.  Not that brooms were everything, but a good broom could make a difference in the hands of a good player. 

When he turned around, Firebolt in hand, they were all looking at him.  Most of them looked wary rather than keen, but Harry had expected something like that.

"Come on then," he said, stifling a sigh.  "Let's see if anyone could be arsed to come and try their luck."

But when they walked out onto the pitch, a respectable number of Slytherins were waiting there with a motley assortment of brooms.  More interestingly, the greater number of them were girls for a change.  There hadn't been any female players on the Slytherin team since Harry's first year, and even then they had only been reserves; neither Flint nor Higgs, the previous captains, had wanted girls on their teams and Professor Snape hadn't interfered with their choices.  Harry had no problem with it, though; both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff benefited from all-female Chasers and the Holyhead Harpies were one of the most alarming teams in the national league.  He noted Tracy Davis's presence with satisfaction, suspecting that she had been the one to pass word that he wouldn't be prejudiced on grounds of gender.

There were also more people sitting in the stands than Harry had expected, but observers were nothing new and they were probably just curious to see how he would make out as captain.  He ignored them and set the crate of Quidditch balls down a few feet from where the hopefuls had gathered.

"Okay, everyone gather round," he said, pitching his voice to be heard by a few stragglers who were standing back.  They all moved closer.  "Like I said on the bulletin in the Common Room, we're trying out today for _all_ positions, including Seeker.  I'm looking for a primary Keeper and a full reserve team, but as I told the current team the other evening, no one's position is safe.  If anyone slacks or we get a particularly promising newcomer, I _will_ reshuffle."

"What if you find a couple of better Seekers?"  That was Tracy Davis, although she wouldn't look him in the eye as she said it; she was studying the nails on her right hand with intense interest.

There was a tiny ripple of amusement and consternation through the others, but Harry shrugged.

"Then I take it up with Professor Snape and let him decide," he said coolly.  That earned him some shocked looks.  "You want us to win, don't you?  Well, so do I.  I'm leaving at the end of the year anyway, Davis, and I wouldn't mind having more free time."

Now they looked worried, which was both interesting and amusing.  Did they seriously think he would just hand over his badge and walk away from the game?  Harry knew that he was very, very good on a broom, probably far and ahead better than anyone else standing on the pitch - or even sitting in the stands, for he hadn't missed the presence of the Hufflepuff Seeker and Ravenclaw captain – and he had just enough conceit to genuinely doubt that he would find anyone better for the position of Seeker today.  On the other hand, he knew that at least one current player would make a reasonably good captain in his place, and already planned to promote him to second.

"Okay, let's get started.  You might as well know now that you're going to be trying out for all four positions.  Ultimately, I pick the team, okay?  If you try out okay for a Beater position, then you'll be a Beater - I don't care what position you think you'd look good in, because it's not about _you_ , it's about the team.  If you don't like that then you can get lost now."

He paused.  A couple of the younger girls looked a bit indignant.

"And if you're wrapped up in Gobstones or Chess Societies, or signed up for the Advanced Charms Club or something, then start thinking about where your loyalties will lie if you get on the Quidditch Team.  As far as I'm concerned, Quidditch comes first.  Anyone who misses more than one practice session because they're too tied up with other commitments gets kicked off the team."  Harry fixed a couple of smirking third-year boys with a cold stare.  "The same goes for anyone who ends up in detention on a practice night, if I find out they were kicking up larks for the hell of it.  Understood?"  There were one or two disgruntled looks, but no one said anything.  "Good.  Okay, let's split up into teams."

The current team were wearing their standard uniform; Harry pulled out a set of seven cloth numbers usually used for reserves during practice and handed them out to the newcomers.  Everyone without a number was sent to wait on the reserve bench; the rest he ordered into the air.  Then he released the Bludgers and the Snitch, and grabbed the Quaffle, tucking it under his arm as he mounted his own broom and took to the air.

Try-outs always took hours, which was why Harry had picked a Saturday to hold them.  They started just before eight o'clock, and it was some time after ten when he called a halt to the session with the first 'teams'.  As he'd suspected, Tracy Davis made a better than fair Chaser; two of her friends were pretty good too and the three of them worked well together.  One of the third year boys showed a certain amount of promise as a Keeper too, although Harry was privately reserving judgement on him in case there was better material among the would-be players still on the bench.

"That was pretty a good session," he said, when they'd all flown to within talking distance.  "Davis, Mahoney, Yaxley, nice handling of the Quaffle – you've made Chaser.  Dawson, there's a Keeper in you somewhere, but you're going to need to train hard, okay?  The rest of you, I've got a good idea of what you can all do, so let's – "  He stopped, his eye caught by something happening on the pitch below.  "What the hell?"

"What's Malfoy doing here?  I heard he was banned from the pitch," one of the Beaters said.

"He is," Harry said grimly, and without another word he directed his broom towards the ground.

The white-blond hair was unmistakable, as were the hulking forms of Malfoy's thugs, Crabbe and Goyle.  As he swooped in closer, Harry saw Theo Nott a few feet from the others and recognised Pansy Parkinson's dark bobbed hair.  He flew in low around the backs of all the waiting would-be members of the Quidditch team and jumped from his broom while it was still moving, catching it up in one hand smoothly.

"You must want to be expelled really badly," he told Malfoy as the other Slytherins scattered to let him through.

"Piss off, Potty, this has nothing to do with you," Pansy said, her small face contemptuous.

Harry ignored her, walking straight up to Malfoy.  "Don't you have somewhere else you should be?" he demanded pointedly.  "Like – just about _anywhere_ else but here?"

""You don't tell me where I can go or what I can do," Malfoy returned scornfully.  "Halfblood."

Harry stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or smack him for it.  " _Halfblood?_   That's pathetic - why don't you call me four-eyes while you're at it?  And in case you didn't hear me the first time, you're not supposed to be here, Malfoy, so why don't you and your travelling circus get lost before I decide someone should be told – like Snape?"

"No – _you_ get lost," Malfoy told him, and his face twisted into a familiar sneer.  "Before I get bored and hurt you."

"Yeah, right."  Harry snorted.  "That'll be a first.  Unless you're planning to set your bodyguards on me - any time they're ready then!"

"Five against one, Potter!" Pansy snapped.  "Unless you think anyone here – " she waved at the cluster of Slytherins watching, "is going to help you out!"

Harry looked her up and down contemptuously.  "Five against one – wow, Parkinson, that's really _brave_.  I'd better try to look scared, hadn't I?  – Stay where you are, Nott, or I'll have to hex you properly this time."

Nott had been sidling around behind the group of Slytherins to come up behind Harry; he froze, his eyes going to Malfoy for instructions.  Harry smiled nastily at Malfoy.

"They aren't going to help you either, are they, Malfoy?  That's why you're here, you were trying to frighten them off or something.  Well, here's a newsflash for you, you moron – you don't control Slytherin anymore, and you don't get to control who's on the Quidditch team either.  So take your pathetic little gang and get lost!"

Malfoy's face was white with anger.  "You don't tell me what to do, Potter!  And until you control me, you don't control Slytherin!"

Harry laughed and deliberately turned away from him, surreptitiously shaking his wand out of his right sleeve into his palm.  He heard someone shriek _Harry!_ just as Malfoy spat out a word, and he dropped to the ground, releasing his broom and rolling.  The curse flared out over his head, and there were screams as the other Slytherins scattered to avoid it. 

Harry came up on one knee and retaliated with a Vomiting Hex that hit Malfoy square in the stomach.  He doubled up and fell to his knees, retching.  Harry saw Pansy drawing her wand next, her face contorted with fury, and quickly forestalled her with a neat little netting spell that Sirius had taught him over the holidays.  The sticky threads enveloped her easily before she could frame a breath to curse him and she squealed instead, thrashing madly as the net constricted around her to bind her arms fast against her body.

Harry got to his feet.  The rest of the team were swooping down to the pitch and people were running from the stands as he slowly walked over to where Crabbe and Goyle were supporting Malfoy through a violent paroxysm.  It seemed that the confrontation was over – but Harry kept his wand at the ready just in case. 

"Potter!  _Potter!_ "

He recognised Hermione's voice easily as she pushed her way through the crowd, but he wasn't about to turn around to see what her problem was.  He'd find out soon enough.

"You put that wand away _now_ , or I'll confiscate it!" she shouted.  "Back away from them!"

Actually he wanted to check that his broom hadn't taken any damage when he'd dropped it.  It was still lying in the grass and looked unharmed, but one never knew.

"Potter, are you listening to me?"  Hermione was nearly beside herself when he looked up, but what he actually saw brought his wand up so fast that her eyes bulged with alarm.  _"No!"_

The _Expelliarmus_ Nott cast from behind her whipped Hermione's own wand out of her hand without her even seeing it happen and Harry reacted purely on reflex, shouting a stunning charm.  He felt it roar from the end of the wand, far more powerful than he had intended, and without thinking he pulled back on the spell.  It still hit Nott, knocking him flat on his back, senseless, but at a fraction of the power … and the rest of the power recoiled back into Harry like a whip.

The next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back and feeling like he'd been hit by an avalanche.  His whole body was cold, sore and tingling, like the aftermath of pins and needles when the circulation was first restored to a numbed limb.  And Hermione Granger was shaking him.

"Harry – _Harry!_ Are you all right?  _HARRY!_ "

Had she gone mad?  She wasn't supposed to call him Harry at school, they weren't supposed to be anything other than Gryffindor and Slytherin non-acquaintances.

Harry managed to lift an arm to shove her off him, and then it seemed possible to roll over onto his stomach.  He coughed weakly and was somehow crawling to his hands and knees before he quite knew how he was managing it. 

Hermione was still shaking his shoulder and saying his name.  He had to do something about that before the other Slytherins started wondering why she was all but weeping over him.

"Will you get the fuck off me, you stupid bint?" 

Was that his voice?  Christ, he had to do better than that.  He coughed again, cleared his throat, and spat.  That was better; his vision cleared and all he could see were legs clad in varying garments.

Harry climbed to his feet painfully.  Someone grabbed his left arm to help him; he was ready to shake them off if it was Granger, but when he looked it was Blaise, eyes wide with concern. 

"Potter, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."  Harry was actually surprised to discover that it was true.  Upright was a big improvement on being on his back, and the cold feeling was nearly gone, taking with it the unnerving weakness he'd initially felt.  His vision was clear and his head felt reasonably clear too.  He shook himself a bit and didn't topple over; he'd definitely survived worse than this, on numerous occasions.  Then his eyes fell on Pansy, still thrashing inside her net.

"Can somebody clear these prats off pitch, please?  I'm trying to conduct try-outs here!"

"Potter, you can't seriously mean to carry on?"  Blaise sounded shocked.  "You've just been knocked out, you need to go to the infirmary!"

"Bollocks to that," Harry retorted.  He stooped to pick up his broom and his eyes swam for a moment, but they cleared again as soon as he straightened up.  "We're only half done here, and the pitch is booked solid for the next three weeks."  He pushed through his muttering audience to where the other Slytherins were milling about.  "Come on, you lot, on your brooms and in the air!  We'll sort the numbers out when we're up there."

He looked around; everyone was staring at him like he'd grown an extra head or something.  Harry started to feel annoyed.

"Look, if you're not a Slytherin and not trying out, will you _please_ clear the pitch already?  Christ!  We've only got a few more hours left out here."

 

xXx

 

Professor Snape was waiting in his office for Harry when he went to show him the lists of the proposed new team members and reserves that evening.

"I've managed to put together two full teams as I intended, Sir, if you'll approve the names – "  Harry began, but Snape had already stood up and was walking around the corner of his desk.

"Shut the door, Potter."

He looked and sounded angry; bemused, Harry turned and closed the door as ordered.

"There was an incident on the Quidditch pitch this morning," Snape said coldly.

Harry wondered if he was going to get into trouble for Malfoy's stupidity.  "Yes, Sir, but the prefects and Head Girl sorted it out."

"I'm not interested in Mr. Malfoy's conduct, Potter.  Zabini informed me that you sustained an injury of some kind that knocked you out."

Harry mentally cursed Blaise.  "It wasn't an injury, Sir.  I pulled a Stunning Hex and – "

"You did _what_ , Potter?"

"Pulled the hex, Sir."  Harry stared at the Potions Master, confused.  "I cast it more strongly than I intended, but I managed to pull most of the hex so that it didn't hit Nott so hard.  It just … sort of rebounded and knocked me over."

Snape stared at him silently for so long that he began to wonder just what the problem was.

"You _pulled_ the hex."

"Yes, Sir.  I wasn't expecting it to knock me over, that's all.  I was fine when I got up again."

"Zabini tells me that you were knocked out cold for at least five minutes."

That was news to Harry.  "I don't think so, Sir.  I was fine – I felt a bit odd when I first got up, but once I was back on my feet I was okay.  I must have been because I finished the try-outs …."

He watched, astonished, as Snape walked away from him to the fireplace at the back of the office, lit the fire and threw a handful of Floo power into it.

"Infirmary!"

Madam Pomfrey's head appeared in the fireplace.  "Yes, Severus?"

"Step through to my office, will you?  Potter has done something idiotic again, and needs to be examined."

"No I don't!" Harry said, alarmed, but it was too late.  Madam Pomfrey was stepping out of the fireplace, brushing ash off her apron and sleeves with finicky fingers.

"Potter, you will do as you are told," Snape said coldly.

"Let's have no nonsense, Mr. Potter," the matron told him sternly.  "You may be an adult now, but while you're at this school your health is my responsibility.  Now, what have you been doing?"

"It was _nothing!_ " Harry said, exasperated.  "Why is everyone making such a fuss?"

"I do not _make a fuss_ , Potter, least of all over you," Snape snapped.  He turned to Madam Pomfrey.  "He seems to have deliberately reabsorbed the power of an over-cast Stunning Hex – how, I have no idea – but it knocked him cold for several minutes.  And then instead of receiving treatment, he spent three hours on a broomstick!"

Madam Pomfrey's brows went up and her wand came out.  Harry found himself sitting on the edge of Snape's desk with his shirt unbuttoned to his waist while she examined him.

"You had a full dinner on top of it, I see," she told him disapprovingly.

"I didn't have lunch so I was hungry – "

"Well, you'll pay for those indulgences by spending the night in the infirmary," she replied shortly.  "Whatever you did has shocked your internal organs.  You might feel perfectly well at the moment, but by midnight I'll hazard a guess that it'll be a different story!  You'll be lucky if your kidneys and liver haven't been seriously bruised, and I want you where I can keep a proper eye on you, young man."

Harry looked at them both in disbelief, but neither seemed inclined to relent.

"This is stupid!" he said angrily, buttoning up his shirt.

"We'll see if you still feel that way in an hour or two, shall we?" Madam Pomfrey said with a grim smile.  "Come along!"

"Leave the lists on my desk, Potter," Snape said coolly, and he turned away from them.

 

xXx

 

Professor Dumbledore's tread on the polished boards of the infirmary floor was firm but noiseless as he crossed the ward to stand at the foot of one bed.  The lights in the ward had been lowered, but Harry was still easily visible under the covers; he was sleeping restlessly, as though in discomfort.

After a long moment of watching him, Dumbledore left him and went to the infirmary office where Madam Pomfrey was talking in a low voice to Professor Snape.  She looked up when he walked in, her expression lightening.

"Ah, Headmaster!  Thank you for coming."

"But of course," Dumbledore replied gravely.  "How is Harry?"

"More comfortable than he was half an hour ago," she said dryly.  "As I predicted, he lost his dinner and began to feel quite miserable, but I've given him something to reduce the soreness of his insides and a potion to help him sleep.  I'll keep him here tomorrow, but I suspect he'll be ready to go back to his dormitory by the evening."

"And do we have a clearer picture of precisely what happened?"

The corner of Professor Snape's mouth twitched downwards.  "According to Blaise Zabini, Theodore Nott cast an _Expelliarmus_ charm on the Head Girl while her back was turned.  It's unclear whether he was actually aiming it at her or at Potter, but Potter appears to have seen him do it and cast a Stunning Hex in response.  Potter claimed that the hex was stronger than he anticipated and – in his own words – he "pulled it" and it rebounded.  Zabini disputes the result, and claims that the curse seemed to be reabsorbed back through Potter's wand into his body, knocking him out.  The same observation was made by two other Slytherins at the scene."

"That seems rather unlikely," Dumbledore noted, "but unlikely things do tend to happen to Harry.  It does seem rather more likely that the curse rebounded somehow.  Have his clothes been examined for the  residue?"

"I've just completed my examination of them," Snape replied, gesturing to a small pile of garments on a chair to one side.  "There's no curse residue on them whatsoever.  Theodore Nott's clothes, however, show heavy residue and Potter's wand signature."

"Which they wouldn't had the curse rebounded, nor would he have been Stunned for that matter."  Dumbledore looked thoughtful.  "And if it _had_ rebounded, Harry himself would be showing the curse residue instead.So … Harry reabsorbed the curse energy.  I wonder how he achieved it?"

"He's in no fit state to be asked at the moment," Madam Pomfrey warned.  "But whatever he did was exceptionally dangerous, Headmaster.  If a Stunning Hex could do this, imagine what a more physically disruptive curse could do!"

"Indeed.  The problem, however, lies not in the nature of the curse so much as the power behind it, I would imagine."

Snape gave him a sharp look.  "A Stunning Hex takes very little power to cast."

Dumbledore nodded.  "Quite so, but Harry is not an average wizard, Severus, and he is still coming to terms with the limits of his strength.  That would be problem enough for any young wizard of unusual power, but sometimes he has access to more magic than just his own.  The results can be unpredictable and alarming for him, and it may be that in an unguarded moment he put more force into the hex than he intended.  Just because the Stunning Hex can be cast effectively with minimal power doesn't mean that it can't be overloaded into something far more dangerous.  Mr. Nott may have cause to be grateful for Harry's reflex actions here."

Snape's mouth turned down even further.  "It would appear that our efforts to impress upon Potter that he should _never_ be unguarded have been wasted!"

"I doubt that very much," Dumbledore said quietly, and his blue eyes met Snape's in a quelling look.  "For all that our laws say he is a man, Harry Potter is still young, little more than a boy.  In his own particular ways, he tries very hard to live up to our expectations of him, but it is in the nature of the condition of youth that sometimes he will fail.  Today he lost control for a split second, but he recognised that fact and sought to ameliorate the results.  Rather than condemn him for human frailty, we should rather be grateful that he still possesses the innate conscience that led him to react the way he did."

Snape's expression was sour but he declined to respond to this.  Dumbledore turned back to Madam Pomfrey.

"I should like to speak to Harry at some point tomorrow before you release him.  Perhaps you would let me know of a convenient moment when I may visit."

"Of course, Headmaster.  And should I inform his family of his accident?"

"No … no, I think you should leave that task to me, Poppy.  If they are to be told - and if Harry is likely to be fit and well again by tomorrow evening, it may be better if they are left uninformed for the time being - then better that I speak to Sirius Black."  Dumbledore gave her a rueful smile.  "I can well imagine his reaction upon being told that his godson is back in the infirmary within two weeks of returning to school!  Well, it _is_ something of a record, even for Harry."

 

xXx

 

 **13 th September – 18th September 1997**

 

 

Harry was not happy at being kept in the infirmary the following day.  He felt fine again and couldn't see why Madam Pomfrey was making such a fuss.  He was even less happy when, having inveigled his first visitor, Blaise, into bringing him his homework, the matron confiscated the books and parchment.

"How am I supposed to get my homework done on time if I'm not allowed to study?" he demanded, outraged.  "It's not like I'm doing anything else here!"

She was unimpressed.  "When I say you need to rest, Mr. Potter, I _mean_ rest!  Not working yourself into a brain-fever over a transfiguration essay.  So I suggest you lie back and stop making a fuss, or I may reconsider my decision to let you leave this evening!"

Harry flopped back against his pillows, annoyed.  "What am I supposed to do all day?" he demanded.  "Stare at the walls?"

"Try sleeping," she advised him dryly.

"I've been asleep all night!  Can I at least have some breakfast?"

"I've instructed one of the house-elves to bring you some plain porridge."

"I hate porridge," Harry grumbled.

"That may be so, but your stomach will thank you for it."  Madam Pomfrey stood at the end of his bed and put her hands on her hips, surveying him with mild exasperation.  "Are you going to make a nuisance of yourself, Mr. Potter?"

He glowered at her.  "Am I allowed to have a book to read?"

"We'll see how you are at lunchtime.  Now _rest!_   Or do I need to give you a potion?"

When she was gone, Harry sighed and looked across at Blaise, who was still waiting just inside the screens around his bed.

"What did you have to go and tell Snape for?" he asked, but his tone was sullen rather than angry.  "I was _fine_ until he called Pomfrey!"

"Easy for you to say," Blaise retorted.  "We weren't even sure you were breathing when you first collapsed – I thought I was going to have to give you the kiss of life or something.  And then you just woke up and got up like nothing had happened!  Do you have any idea how weird that was to watch?  Besides, there must have been something wrong or Pomfrey wouldn't be clucking now.  What did you do?"

Harry shrugged, not particularly wanting to discuss it.  "The spell rebounded and hit me.  I don't know why everyone's making a fuss, I really don't."

"It didn't rebound," Blaise said.  "I was watching, Potter – it was like it was pulled back into your wand.  What did you do to make it do that?"

"I told you, I don't know!  I wish everyone would stop nagging me about it – if I hadn't done whatever it was, Nott probably wouldn't have woken up till the end of next week.  And this is the last time I bother doing anyone a favour!  The next time some little shit tries to hex me on the sly, I'll just hex them at full strength and they can fry for all I care!"

Blaise stared at him for a long moment.  "Whatever," he said finally.  "But you might like to remember sometime that I pledged you my support, and I don't give my word lightly, Potter.  You could at least try to return the favour by trusting me occasionally."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Harry demanded.

"Stunning hexes that could knock a hole in the Quidditch stands," Blaise retorted.  "Wandless magic.  Empty study periods where you disappear completely and reappear at all hours of the evening looking shattered.  Books and essays that don't have anything to do with the lessons you're taking this year – "

"Are you spying on me?"

"I'm _trying_ to watch your back."  Blaise's voice began to rise.  "I'm not stupid, Potter, I know you're up to something outside of classes.  But I can't cover for you if I don't know what I'm covering for or when!  And if I can notice that you're not where you're supposed to be and doing things you're not supposed to be, then so can Malfoy.  He's not completely stupid either, you know!"

One of the screens was pulled back sharply, and Madam Pomfrey was standing there, looking more exasperated than ever.  Behind her stood Professor Dumbledore, who looked at the two of them over the top of his spectacles.

"Dear me!" he said mildly.  "Perhaps it's fortunate that no one else is currently unwell.  Mr. Zabini, would you be so kind as to step outside for a few minutes and wait for me in the corridor?  I should like to have a private word with you."

Blaise turned a dull red under the Headmaster's gentle gaze.  He hastily gathered up Harry's pile of books and papers and retreated, leaving Professor Dumbledore to take his place at Harry's bedside.

"Well, Harry, life is certainly full of adventures, wouldn't you say?"

"I can take it or leave it, Sir," Harry replied warily.

Dumbledore chuckled.  "Yes, I imagine you would if you could, but it would seem that life has already decided to take you, whether you will it or no.  And now I imagine you will tell me that you have no idea how you managed to reabsorb the energy of your spell after you released it, hm?"

"I pulled it," Harry said with a shrugged.  "Honestly, Sir, that's what it felt like.  It wasn't like I intended to do it.  But I still think the curse just rebounded, so I don't know why everyone's making a fuss."

"The evidence is to the contrary, Harry.  Mr. Nott was most certainly stunned, while you showed no sign of it.  What is so curious is how you managed to deplete the energy of the curse without preventing it reaching its natural conclusion.  As I'm sure Professor Flitwick explained in your lessons, the energy of a spell, once released from the wand, 'adheres' to its target unless the target moves out of the way in time – there is no known way of 'recalling' it to the caster."

Harry frowned, considering this.  "But that's not always true, is it, Sir?  When I Animate something my energy is controlling it – it _can_ be severed, but that's a deliberate thing.  And when I fought Voldemort at the Tri-Wizard Tournament, our wands connected then."

"Those are hardly ordinary magical situations, Harry," Dumbledore said, looking at him over the top of his spectacles.  "Priori Incantatem is a very rare magical effect – the chances of two wands, made of the precise same magical cores, being brought into conflict with each other are minuscule, and the effect has been documented in less than half a dozen known instances in the last ten centuries.  And Animation is an inborn magical gift, not a spell _per se_."

"Then what does that mean about what I did?"

The Headmaster hesitated.  "Well … it suggests that you may not be fully releasing your spells from your wand when you cast them.  That in itself is extremely unusual, to put it mildly.  Spell construction is a complex business and those spells most commonly in use – spells taught to the general populace at the various magical institutions in Europe – are constructed to be used in a particular way.  In order for them to operate effectively one must articulate the spell clearly and make the correct gesture with one's wand, and the construction is such that the amount of magic infused into the spell is automatically regulated by – "

Dumbledore stopped, suddenly looking thoughtful.

Harry stared up at him, perplexed.  "Professor?"

Dumbledore blinked.  "I do beg your pardon!  How very rude of me."

"Is it something to do with my wand, Sir?" Harry asked, disregarding the apology.

"It shouldn't be, Harry, but … may I examine your wand for a moment?"

Harry (in keeping with ninety-nine percent of the adult magical population) was more than a little twitchy about other people touching his wand, but there was no rational reason not to comply with this request so he handed it over and watched narrowly as the Headmaster examined it.

"I am not an expert in the construction of wands, it must be said," he said finally, handing it back.  "I see nothing out of the ordinary in it, but a truer opinion would be better acquired from Mr. Ollivander.  Perhaps that can be arranged."

Harry didn't say anything, but he couldn't view this suggestion with enthusiasm.  Ollivander was an uncomfortably strange man.

"Well, I suppose I'd better have a little chat with your friend Mr. Zabini," Dumbledore said, reclaiming his attention.

Harry flushed uncomfortably although in all honesty he couldn't see quite how he could have managed his activities over the past week any differently.

"I haven't been trying to get caught out, Sir," he muttered.

"No … I rather suspect Mr. Zabini has been, ah, protecting his investment, shall we say?"

"That had better be all he's been doing," Harry said irritably.  He couldn't help being just a little suspicious of Blaise's interest in his movements.  Blaise was a Slytherin after all, and being of a suspicious nature had saved Harry's skin more than once where his House-mates were concerned.

"Sometimes one has to take a leap of faith."

Harry looked up at Dumbledore and was surprised to see an unfamiliar expression on the elderly headmaster's face, one he couldn't identify.

"I've done my share of that lately, haven't I, Sir?"

Dumbledore smiled a little sadly.  "You will find, Harry, that leaps of faith are like tests: Just as you think you've done your fair share of them, life finds entirely new ones for you to take."

 

xXx

 

Whatever Dumbledore said to him, Blaise chose not to return to the infirmary and Harry found himself passing the treacle-slow hours by counting the patterns on the screens around his bed.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so bored.  Then, just before lunch, he heard light footsteps outside the screens and someone hesitantly looked in.

Amy Snodgrass.  Harry sat up in a hurry.

"Hello," she said after a moment.

"Hi."  Harry was uncomfortably aware that he was wearing ugly striped infirmary pyjamas and that his hair was uncombed.  "What are you doing here?"

She took this as an invitation and stepped inside the screens.  He noticed that she looked rather pretty in her weekend gear of dark blue jeans and short-sleeved pink sweater, and her hair was in a becoming french braid.  Then he had to remind himself that he wasn't supposed to be noticing things like that at all.

"The infirmary's on my prefect patrol route today," she explained.  "Are you all right?  I heard you got hit by a spell backfiring yesterday."

Harry suppressed a grimace.  "Something like that, but I'm okay."

"You look really bored," Amy observed.  "Don't you have anything to read?  I'm going to library when I've finished patrolling, I could get you a book if you want."

"I'm not allowed to read at the moment," Harry told her.

"Why not?"

"Dunno – I reckon Pomfrey thinks it might give me the idea I'm not ill, maybe," he suggested, and she smiled.  Harry hastily decided to change the subject before he could start having inappropriate thoughts.  "Has Nott given you any more trouble?"

Amy frowned.  "No.  But I already told you, I can deal with him myself.  I'm not feeble you know, Harry."

"I didn't say you were!" he said.  "I'm just _saying_.  He's a minging little creep and he's probably going to get thrashed sometime anyway, so it might as well be for a good reason."

She gave him a disapproving look.  "You Slytherins!  If you can't beat up someone from another house, you beat each other up instead!"

"Hey!  That's not fair!  Who said anything about beating him up?"

"You said he was going to get thrashed!"

"Define 'thrashed' for me."

Amy eyed him narrowly.  "You define it."

Harry shrugged.  "I could just put the fear of God into him.  Or the fear of _me_ , that would be more useful."

"Why do you want him to be afraid of you?"

"Because fear is the only kind of respect people like Nott are capable of.  And until he respects me he won't stay in his place and behave."

She sighed.  "Harry, _why_ do you have to rule Slytherin?"

Harry blinked.  "What does that matter to anyone outside of Slytherin, Amy?"

"Because life is so much easier for the rest of us when you Slytherins aren't at each other's throats!"

" _Are_ we at each other's throats?" he asked, surprised.

"You've obviously missed the way Malfoy's been treating the lower years this week," she told him dryly.

" _He's_ overdue for a thrashing too," Harry told her.  "It's just a matter of opportunity."

"And what makes you think he'll stayed thrashed?"

"Look, what do you want from me?" he demanded, growing exasperated.  "If you think it's a pain from your end of things, what do you think it's like for me?"

"I don't understand why you're doing this at all!" she retorted.  "Why can't you just ... let it go, like before?  It's not like you to get mixed up with this kind of thing!"

"Oh, and you're an expert on what I'm like, are you?  And why the hell _should_ I let things go?  Do you think my life was any easier when Malfoy got his way and I just kept my head down?  Well, it wasn't!  Someone has to stand up to the little shit for once, and I don't see anyone else doing it, so I'll have to do it myself as usual, won't I!"

Amy took a step back, dismayed at his vehemence, and Harry had a brief moment to curse his own temper before the screen behind her was pulled aside and Tony Goldstein looked in.

"Everything all right here?" he asked, looking from Amy to Harry and back.  "Finished your patrol, Snodgrass?"

"Nearly," she mumbled, and she quickly turned and left.

Tony didn't leave with her.  Instead he came further inside the screens and pulled them closed behind him.

"You all right there, Potter?" he asked tucking his hands into his jeans pockets and regarding Harry curiously.

"Oh yeah, I'm just singing happy songs to myself, I'm so all right!" Harry snapped.  "What do you want, Goldstein?  Oh, wait - you're here to give me some earache about Malfoy and the other Slytherins, right?"

Tony seemed unimpressed by his outburst, and Harry found it both annoying and unnerving that he could be so unmoved.  "Not really.  I'm just here to see if you're all right after yesterday.  You gave everyone a hell of a fright, you know."

"I reckon you're all way too easily frightened," Harry told him irritably.

"The rest of us don't lead your life of adventure," Tony said blandly.  "We're not used to averaging one near-death experience a term."

"You think I'm used to it, Goldstein?"

"You seem to take it in your stride," Tony said, looking wry.  "I mean, look at yesterday – you rose from the dead and got straight back on your broomstick."

Harry made a rude noise.  "I didn't die!"

"You came damn close to it.  Why do you think you're in here?"

"I think I'm in here because people keep overreacting!"

"You're an incredibly prickly person, you know that?"

Harry tried to get a grip on his aggravation, and gave Tony a falsely sweet smile.  "I'm sorry – how would you like me to be?"

"You could try being a little friendlier!"  Tony was becoming exasperated.  "What's your problem, Potter?  Not everyone in the world is against you, you know – "

"Could have fooled me!"

"You seem determined to think the worst of people!"

"It saves time," Harry explained, then he saw Tony's face.  "Oh, for Christ's sake – _joke!_ "

Tony sighed.  "Not funny.  You've got to make more of an effort, you know, Potter.  People might be willing to change their opinion of you, but they're not going to do that when you act like a little shit all the time."

Annoyance surged up in Harry's chest again.  "Frankly, Goldstein, I couldn't give a flying fuck what people think of me, and I'm damned if I'll change who I am on the off-chance that the magical world will change its mind about me at this stage!  You can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned.  This is who I am and you can just live with it!"

"Fine!"  Tony finally seemed to lose patience with him.  "I'll leave you to it, shall I?  Enjoy your day!"

He stormed off, leaving Harry to count cracks on the ceiling until lunchtime.  Lunch was a disappointing event involving a bland ham sandwich and a cup of weak, milky tea.  Harry thought wistfully of Remus's favourite Orange Pekoe blend and Sirius's tarry Assam brew, and could almost hear his godfather's disgusted snort of _Water bewitched!_ at the infirmary tea.  He drank it, but only because the alternative was water from a jug that had been standing in full sunlight all morning.

After lunch Madam Pomfrey examined him again and told him disapprovingly that he might read a book if he chose.  The only problem with this that Harry could see was that he didn't _have_ a book and had no means of obtaining one.  Frustrated, he resigned himself to an afternoon of continued boredom. 

Just after two o'clock he heard more footsteps and this time it was Hermione Granger who put her head around the screens.  They stared at each other.

"I wasn't expecting to see _you_ ," Harry said after a moment of surprise.

"Yes - you're lucky I don't bear grudges," she told him, and she stepped inside the screens properly.

"I am?"

"Perhaps you've forgotten what you said to me on the Quidditch Pitch yesterday," she said dryly.  "I should have taken points just for your language."

"What - oh, _that_."  Harry felt a twinge of annoyance.  "What were you thinking, calling me Harry in front of everyone?  We're not friends, we're not supposed to have any reason to use each other's first names!"

"Perhaps I called you by your first name because I'd already tried calling you Potter and it wasn't working?" she suggested.

"I suppose you're another of the berks who thinks I nearly died yesterday."

"What will it take to convince you?" Hermione asked, looking almost as exasperated as Madam Pomfrey for a moment.  "I wasn't the only one who nearly panicked when it happened, Harry!  We really did think you'd stopped breathing for a moment - Zabini was ready to give you the kiss of life.  Actually, I was rather surprised that he even knew how to do it," she added as an afterthought, frowning, and Harry made himself suppress a grin at her expression.

"Maybe he's just another of my numerous admirers, desperate to get their hands on my body," he suggested blandly.

"Not so very numerous," she retorted.  "I think you've managed to drive off Tony Goldstein, at any rate.  He wasn't terribly happy with you when I saw him just before lunch."

"Goldstein's a berk too," Harry remarked.

"According to you, the world is populated with _berks_ ," Hermione noted, disapproving.

"Well, they are, aren't they?"  He looked at her and the corner of his mouth twitched irrepressibly.  "Come off it, Granger!  You're supposed to be smart - don't _you_ think most people are complete pillocks, given half a chance?"

"Unlike you, Harry, my respect for people isn't dependent upon their ability to rise above their normal human frailties," she said loftily.

He nodded.  "Yeah, I was forgetting how chummy you are with Brown and Patil.  And let's not forget your obvious respect for Lovegood of Ravenclaw."

Hermione glared at him.  He smiled back sweetly.

"I can see you don't need my company," she said, annoyed, "and I can make better use of my time in the library.  I'll let Ron know that you're not interested in being visited by lesser beings, shall I?"

"Yeah, tell him to get his arse up here," Harry told her, "and he's to come alone, okay?"

Hermione let out an exasperated breath and for the fourth time that day Harry was treated to the sight of someone stalking away from his bedside in a huff.  At the last minute he remembered something important and called after her: "Tell him to bring me something to read!"

 

xXx

 

Ron was grinning when he finally slipped between the screens around Harry's bed a while later.

"What are you up to?" he asked Harry.  "Sounds like you've been pissing people off all over the place today, which is pretty good going considering that you're stuck in here!"

"Did you bring me a book?" Harry demanded.

"Might have."  Ron sat down on the end of the bed and folded his arms.  "You're a troublesome little sod, you are."

"I'm bored is what I am!  And when people bother to visit me, all they can do is nag about how I supposedly nearly died and I should be nicer to people!"

"You nearly died, you know.  And why don't you try to be a bit nicer to people?"

"Piss off, Weasley," Harry told him, a grin beginning to curl the corner of his mouth.  "I don't see _you_ worrying much about my near-death experience.  That tells me a lot."

Ron hung onto his own grin with an effort.  He'd actually panicked quite a lot – in private, as Hermione had had the sense to drag him into one of Filch's broom-cupboards on the second floor before telling him about the incident.  She'd also ranted at some length about Harry's appalling rudeness when he'd come around, as had Tony Goldstein when the two of them ran into him on the way into the Great Hall for lunch.

"I heard about it," he said now, and it took real willpower to keep his tone casual.  "What happened?"

Harry shrugged.  "Christ knows.  I hexed Nott and it came out a bit strong, so I tried to stop it.  Honestly, I don't _know_ what I did, but I wish I hadn't now.  It's a bloody nuisance and I've spent all day in here crawling up the walls, I'm so bored.  Pomfrey wouldn't even let me read."

"She wouldn't keep you here if she didn't have to, mate."

"Yeah, right."  Harry shifted restlessly against his pillows.  "Say, do you know what happened to Parkinson and Malfoy by any chance?  I meant to ask Blaise but Dumbledore turned up and I forgot."

"Hermione said Malfoy chucked up for a while, but Snape gave him a potion to stop it.  He's got a detention, but she didn't say what or for how long.  Parkinson too."  Ron frowned.  "Malfoy wasn't supposed to be on the pitch, she said.  What's that about?"

"He's been banned from Quidditch," Harry said.  "Snape told me the first night we got back, but I'm not supposed to tell people."

"Bit late for that, everyone was talking about it at lunch," Ron said wryly.  "Nott got a detention too, or so I heard.  You stunned him, you know."

"Won't teach him anything," Harry said irritably.  "I should have just saved myself all the grief and let it hit him at full strength.  If he was knocked out for a week or two, it'd have kept him out of my way at least."

Ron thought it might have caused more trouble in the long run.  "Don't say that.  Right now, nobody's really sure what happened, but if you'd knocked him out that hard they'd have all been asking questions about how you did it.  You're a pretty powerful wizard, Harry, and maybe it's better people don't know that."

"Yeah, Dumbledore said something similar to me."  Harry sighed.  "Although everyone's asking me what happened anyway."

Ron shook his head.  "Not from what I heard.  I only know something weird happened because Hermione saw it and told me, but most people didn't see the spell go back into your wand - they think something Nott did made it rebound, maybe a shield charm or something.  And he's not telling them anything different, believe me.  Him and Malfoy are putting it about that this is what happens to anyone who interferes with them, and since it's not possible to stop a spell once you've cast it ...."  He let his voice trail off suggestively.  "Zabini, Hermione and Goldstein are about the only ones who aren't buying it, and that's only because they know you."

Harry stared at him for a long moment.  "How are they talking their way past me getting up afterwards and flying all afternoon?"

Ron shrugged, uneasily.  "Mate, that was yesterday.  You've been in here since last night, and they all know it.  While you're out of the way and can't give a different story, Malfoy can say what he likes."

"Christ.  One step forward, two steps back."  Harry flopped back against his pillows and stared up at the ceiling.

"It's still better they don't know the truth," Ron insisted.

"Easy for you to say.  You don't share a dormitory with Malfoy.  You don't share a house with the rest of Slytherin."

"There's got to be some mileage in you getting up and walking away from it at first," Ron said, concerned at his friend's expression.

"Let's hope so, because the last thing I need is the whole lot of them deciding I'm a bad bet after all."

Ron bit his lip.  "This leadership thing ...."

Harry looked at him.  "Yeah?"

"Is it worth it?" Ron asked him.  "All I see is you twisting yourself into knots over it.  I don't see what you're getting out of it that makes it worth all this crap.  I don't reckon Malfoy's acting any different than he ever has, that's for sure."

"He hasn't got so many people behind him now," Harry told him.  "It might look like it's the same old act, but before most of the house followed him.  They didn't like it, but there weren't any other options.  If he did something to anyone outside, the house closed ranks - like when he tipped you down the kitchen stairs, everyone knew what had happened because he couldn't keep his sodding mouth shut in the common room, but no one talked.  Snape had to turn the dormitories upside down for evidence.  But he's got less people behind him now and a lot more are unsure of him.  That's got to be worth something."

"Like what?"

"Like ...."  Harry paused, frowning.  "Look, Ron, he's not a Death Eater now, but I reckon it's only a matter of time, don't you?  His father already is, he's practically Voldemort's right-hand man, so you can bet he's going to want to show how loyal the family is by having Draco sign up too.  And if there are people following Malfoy at school, how good is it going to look when he says to Voldemort that he can guarantee a number of people who'll do what he tells them?  But if he _can't_ guarantee it - if they'd actually prefer to follow me, or just won't commit themselves ...?"

"You really think they'll follow you instead of him, if it comes to the crunch?" Ron asked him flatly. 

"No," Harry said at once.  "But if I can make enough of them doubtful about him, that'll have to be enough."

"Hm."  Ron found all this very unsettling, and he tried to lighten the mood.  "Well, maybe it'd help if you _did_ work on your people skills, mate!"

Harry looked at him for a moment, and the corner of his mouth began to twitch mischievously again.

"Maybe I already have, and you just haven't noticed."

"What do you mean?"

"Well ... you'd tell me if I'd become the thinking man's sex god overnight, wouldn't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron demanded suspiciously.

"I've reckon I've become an object of lust for Ravenclaws."

He folded his arms and gave Harry a narrow look.  "Which Ravenclaw?"

"Goldstein keeps popping up and making saucy remarks," Harry explained, grinning.

Ron made a rude noise.  "Bet that brings a whole new meaning to _Head Boy_ , yeah?  I wouldn't bet on him panting to rip your jammies off, though - he was pretty pissed off earlier!"

Harry shrugged.  "Maybe he's just desperately trying to hide it."

"You've got an opinion of yourself!" Ron told him, with a snort.  He dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a tiny object that he unshrank with a tap of his wand.  "I brought you a book, as _demanded_.  Sorry it's not Saucy Sylvester, but I reckon old Pince keeps those for herself.  It's one of those Publius Chase mysteries, like the ones Remus gave you for your birthday, okay?"

"That's great - thanks.  I'd read Gilderoy Lockhart's biographies, I'm so bored."

"That can be arranged," Ron told him dryly.  "Hermione's got a complete set, signed and everything."

 

xXx

 

Harry was released from the infirmary just as dinner was being served in the Great Hall that evening.  Madam Pomfrey's parting exhortation was for him not to eat too heavily; Harry planned to obey this command by heading to the library to finish his homework instead of having dinner.

The Slytherin Common Room was empty when he walked in, as was his dormitory, which suited him fine.  He felt a twinge of anxiety when he looked at his bed, however, for someone had pulled the dark green hangings back all the way, something he had carefully _not_ been doing because of Phoebe the spider.  When he peered up into the canopy, though, she was still there; her original web had been damaged, but with the infinite industry and resourcefulness of her kind, she had simply built a new one further inside the canopy, one that was secured to the frame rather than to the curtains.  By the looks of it, she wasn't going hungry either.  She was tucked deep inside the funnel-shaped lair at the centre of the web, but Harry saw her forelegs move as his shadow fell across the mouth of it.

Satisfied, he pulled his trunk out from under the bed.  He could tell almost at once that a couple of attempts had been made to break into it again, and a smear of blood near the lock suggested that the lid had bitten one of the culprits, but the charms were still intact.  Harry grinned nastily at this.  Apparently none of his dorm-mates were destined to be curse-breakers when they left school.  He unlocked the trunk, found his book bag, and was transferring texts, rolls of parchment and quills into it when he heard a sound from behind him.  Harry's wand was levelled on the 'intruder' before he even knew who it was.

Malfoy.  Unusually for him, he was alone and his eyes widened with shock and fright at the swiftness of Harry's move before he quickly covered his reaction with a sneer.  Harry didn't miss the quick flash of inquisitiveness in his eyes, though, and was annoyed with himself even though _not_ to react to the sound would have been equally reckless.

"Potter," he said scornfully.

Harry put his wand away.  "Malfoy.  Why aren't you at dinner?"

"What business is it of yours, halfblood?"

Harry sighed inwardly at the insult, but carried on packing his homework into his bag.  He was aware of the other youth's sharp eyes watching as he closed and locked the trunk, but the locking spell was an ordinary one; the other charms all sealed themselves automatically when the lid was closed.

"Not dead yet, then?"

"Nope."  Harry gave him an insincere smile as he pushed the trunk back under his bead and stood up.  "Not yet.  Sorry about that."

"Oh well.  It's only a matter of time."

Harry watched Malfoy walking over to his own bed and the lack of concern in the words suddenly struck him as odd.

"Have you ever seen anyone die?" he asked on impulse.

"What?"

Malfoy whipped around, genuinely startled by the question, and Harry noticed that he had Sirius's eyes – a shade or two lighter than his godfather's slate grey colour, perhaps, but the same shape in a face that held a number of disconcerting similarities.  It was as odd a realisation as noticing that Snape had the same hands a week before, although logically Harry knew that they were all closely related and some physical resemblances were inevitable.

Harry swung the bag up onto his shoulder, feigning a nonchalance he didn't really feel.  He wasn't even sure why he had bothered to ask the question.

"Have you ever seen anyone die?" he repeated.

Malfoy's brows twitched into a confused frown.  "Of course I have!  What kind of question is that?"

"Really?  I mean, you've actually watched them die?"

"If you must know, I was present when my grandfather died.  But what business it is of yours, Potter?"

Harry wondered if that was his Malfoy grandfather – Praetonius? – or Sirius's Uncle Cygnus.  Most likely it was the former as, according Sirius, Cygnus Black had died on the French Riviera.

"But did you actually stand over him as he died, or did you just see him afterwards?" Harry persisted.  Part of him wondered why he was pursuing this, but now he really wanted to know if Malfoy realised what he was saying when he wished someone dead, or if it was just posturing.  "Was it peaceful?  Or did he suffer and struggle to live?  Did he look surprised when it happened?"

"Are you mad?"  Malfoy looked revolted – and under the revulsion, Harry thought he detected a hint of fear.  "What kind of sick question is that?  Of course I didn't watch him suffer!"

"So you _haven't_ seen someone die, then," Harry said, nodding.  "You have no idea what it's really like to watch the life leave them.  All _you've_ seen is a nice, tidy body, cleaned up and straightened out after it's all over.  Nothing frightening, or upsetting, or painful, or undignified.  You haven't seen what it's really like when someone fights to live and loses – or isn't even given the chance to fight, but has their life taken away from them by someone who doesn't care.  It's nothing to you.  Death is just a word with no real meaning."

Malfoy turned white.  "Don't you dare say my grandfather's death meant nothing to me."

"I wasn't talking about your grandfather," Harry said coolly.  "I'll bet he died peacefully in his bed after a long and happy life, right?  Good for him.  But I was talking about all those people you happily wish dead, without ever knowing what it really means.  All the people you call 'Mudbloods', for a start.  The Muggleborns.  The halfbloods.  The so-called blood-traitors.  The people who don't agree with your old man and his mates, or don't shape up to their ideals.  It all means nothing to you, it's just words, because you're completely clueless about what it really means for someone to die."

He shrugged his bag into a more comfortable position on his shoulder, taking the opportunity of Malfoy's uncharacteristic silence to organise his thoughts. 

"At least, I _hope_ you're just clueless," he said finally.  "Because if you really do know what it means to torture and kill people, and you still don't care, then I reckon there's no hope for you at all."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Malfoy hissed.  He looked shaken and furious, but Harry wondered how much of that was simply because he didn't have Crabbe and Goyle there to beat Harry up for him.

"Think about it.  You might even work it out."  Harry shook his head and headed for the door, but he was brought up short by the blond boy's voice behind him.

"Why don't you just give up, Potter?"

"Give up what?"

"Oh, please!  Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about."

Give up the battle for control of Slytherin?  Give up the fight against Voldemort?  Perhaps he meant both.  Harry looked over his shoulder.

"I don't give up, Malfoy, because I don't do pointless things."

If his intention had been to leave the other boy with food for thought, then he succeeded.  Harry's last impression of Malfoy, as he closed the door, was that he was once again watching Harry with sharply inquisitive eyes.

 

xXx

 

Harry's third week at school started out in a more settled manner than the previous two.  He received a letter from Sirius detailing his first attendance at the opening session of the Wizengamot ("I wish you the joy of your own maiden speech when the time comes") and a new book bag from Remus ("I shan't ask what happened to the other one, but that doesn't mean I don't want to know"), and handed in his first batches of homework to Professors McGonagall and Sprout on Monday.

He hoped to finish the Potions essay during his free period on Monday afternoon, so it was with a mixture of interest and annoyance that he discovered another summons to the Headmaster's office in his organiser while he was eating his lunch.  Fortunately, it was set for later in the afternoon and there was no corresponding lesson with Professor Flitwick in the evening, so Harry went to Herbology with a mild sense of anticipation.

He half-expected to pass Ron on the way out of the greenhouses after his lesson – Ron had his first Herbology session of the week directly following Harry's – and was a little surprised when he didn't see any of the Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs waiting outside.  It wasn't until he reached the Headmaster's office that he found out why.

Professor Dumbledore was waiting for him, and with him were Petuarius Pettifer and Ron.

Considering that he'd last seen the man less than three weeks ago, Harry was a little surprised at his own pleasure at setting eyes on Mr. Pettifer, and the elderly aristocrat seemed equally delighted to see him, surprising Harry even more by reaching out at once to clasp his hands affectionately instead of exchanging their usual little bow of greeting.

"Well, Henry my boy, it seems I shall not be retreating into a life of monotony after all, now that you have returned to school!" he said good-humouredly, and Harry grinned.

"Professor Dumbledore said you would come to tutor me, Sir.  Thank you."

"Not at all, not at all!  I like to see a task properly completed."

Harry looked at Ron and his grin broadened.  "What are you doing here?  I thought you had Herbology now?"

"The lesson got switched," Ron said, grinning back.  "We're on a bit of a different timetable to you, yeah?  We're supposed to go out to the greenhouses after dinner and study some kind of flower that only comes out at dusk.  You'll probably do the same later."

"So we're going to practice together?" Harry asked, his eyes going to Pettifer and Dumbledore.  "Brilliant!  But where can we duel inside the castle?"

"Nymphadora Tonks assisted Professor Snape and I in placing some wards upon the Lesser Great Hall to approximate those you placed on the ballroom at Black Manor," Professor Dumbledore replied.  "The hall is rarely used these days and quite off the beaten track for most of the student body, but we took the precaution of adding Silencing and Imperturbable Charms to discourage any wanderers.  If you would all like to follow me …."

Harry was surprised to discover how excited he felt as they followed Dumbledore through a maze of narrow back passages to the Lesser Great Hall, and when he caught Ron's eye he saw that his friend was the same.

"I've missed this!" Ron said in response to Harry's look.

"Yeah, me too.  I hope I haven't, you know, softened up or anything."

Overhearing this, Mr. Pettifer chuckled.  "We shall discover soon enough if it is so!" he said over his shoulder to the two teenagers.

"I wonder what the chandeliers are like in this hall," Ron said wryly, and Harry laughed.

The Lesser Great Hall was a little smaller and squarer in shape than the ballroom at Black Manor, and Harry could feel the new wards on it as soon as they walked inside.  Something Harry had been particularly aware of since he returned to school was the subtlety and lack of background "noise" from the thickly-layered and ancient magics of Hogwarts.  Being particularly sensitive to ambient magic, he was appreciative of this, so he knew at once that he was now entering a place where the layers of wards were fresh and new – and not nearly as expertly laid as the old magics of the school's Founders.  The method of laying them was different to the one he'd used at Black Manor too.

"Are these wards set in the bedrock, Professor?" he asked, knowing the answer even as he asked.

"That would be almost impossible in a magical institution of Hogwarts' age and complexity, Harry," Dumbledore replied.  "It would be necessary to unweave every other layer of wards between the floor of this room through to the foundations and beyond, and then re-weave them together again afterwards.  A risky undertaking to say the least, one with a great likelihood of failure.  No, the new wards have been carefully pinned inside the existing framework and will act largely as shock absorbers.  You will need to be exceptionally alert and exercise greater caution here than at the Manor, as there is no layer to disarm potentially fatal spells."

The Headmaster sounded remarkably calm about this.  Harry exchanged a startled glance with Ron and felt a new kind of tension rising in his stomach.  Knowing that there was no 'safety net' added a different dimension to things.

"Very well, gentlemen," Pettifer said calmly, drawing their attention to him.  "Shall we begin?"

 

xXx

 

An hour later, it was dinner time and both teenagers were dripping with sweat.  More than that, the two of them were sporting some minor burns and there were a number of dark singe marks on the walls and floor of the hall.

"Excellent!" Pettifer said, calling a halt to their final bout.  He waved his wand and conjured a tray bearing a jug of iced water and three tall glasses.  "Ronald, permit me to look at that burn …."

Ron bore a long brand across one cheekbone where Harry had caught him with a Scalding Hex – the hex had missed him in the main, but a spray of droplets had landed on his face.  He had retaliated with a fire spell that had left Harry with a ruined shirt and a distinct case of sunburn across his ribs.  Fortunately his discarded robe would cover the damage until he got back to his dorm and changed.

Pettifer performed a minor healing charm on Ron's face and the tiny blisters faded at once.  "Small gain without pain," he commented, and he turned to repeat the charm on Harry's ribs.  "And little enough damage considering the ferocity of your duelling.  I am proud of your progress, gentlemen, and not a little grateful that you are friends for I cannot imagine how you would treat enemies, eh?"

Harry wiped his face with one hand, then grimaced and fastidiously wiped his hand on his damaged shirt.  "I don't think I was consciously holding back, Sir."

"Nor me," Ron said wryly.  He touched his cheekbone gingerly.

"I think you were both fighting quite tactically," Pettifer replied.  He poured the water and handed the glasses around.  "You were aiming for the maximum effect without using unnecessarily powerful charms and curses.  This is what we have been aiming to teach you all summer.  Cunning will serve you better for your purposes, although I will tell you both now that this is not the essence of the formal duel as I was taught it.  In the formal duel the aim is to show as much style as substance.  Any fool with a modicum of training may batter his opponent into submission with curses as near to Unforgivable as to make little difference.  A duel between gentlemen wizards aims to prove the superiority of skill and fineness of mind.  This is why so few wizard duels are ever fought to the death."

Harry smiled a little bitterly at this, remembering that Lord Voldemort's opening salvo in their 'duel' when he was fourteen was the Cruciatus Curse.  "Tell that to the Death Eaters, Sir."

"Ah well!  They are not true gentlemen, Henry."

"No, Sir," he agreed emphatically.

The door into the hall opened and Dumbledore walked in, smiling gently at them.  His quick gaze took in the singe marks on the floor and the damage to the two combatants, and the ready twinkle appeared in his eyes.

"It would appear that this has been a useful session, yes?" he asked.

"Their dedication and progress is very encouraging, Albus," Pettifer said.  "But it would be helpful if we could introduce others into the mix, as we did at Black Manor."

"Unfortunately, there are certain problems attached to that, Petuarius," Dumbledore replied.  "I must seek to avoid including other pupils, not because of their unwillingness or unreadiness to assist, but because of the inevitable risk attached to more people becoming aware of Harry's extracurricular training.  And there is the consequent risk of Ministry attention if more pupils receive extra defence training.  Miss Granger's Defence Association skirts a very thin line of justification as it is - should the Ministry come to believe it is more than a student group with a carefully supervised interest in Defence Against The Dark Arts, the consequences could be unfortunate."

"Could it not be arranged for some of our friends in the Order to join us again?" Pettifer asked, his brows drawing together.

"I am enquiring, but again there is a risk of unauthorised adults being seen accidentally - in particular, the cover of the Aurors in the Order must not be broken, and I have already been informed by the Board of Governors that it is unacceptable for Remus Lupin to be present on school property now that Harry is a legal adult.  And you already know the measures we have had to put into place to bring you here."

"What of Mrs. Tonks?  And I feel sure my granddaughter would be willing to help."

Harry had to suppress a twitch.  He didn't mind Andromeda, but Primrose Pettifer was another matter. 

"Perhaps," Dumbledore said.  "We shall see.  It will be difficult enough arranging for Ron here to join these sessions on a regular basis, so we may have to be creative.  In the meantime we will work to this ad hoc arrangement.  Now - Harry, I suggest you leave first and through the doors over there.  Exercise caution as you do so, and I suggest you put on your robe to hide the damage to your shirt.  Ron may safely leave from my office, I believe."

Harry accepted this.  He turned to Mr. Pettifer and gave him a formal bow.  "Thank you for the lesson, Sir."

"You are very welcome, my boy.  I shall see you again soon."

"I'll see you around, mate," Ron said, smiling a little ruefully at Harry.

"Yeah."  Harry gave him a quick smile - nothing like what he would have liked to have done - and quickly took himself off, reminding himself rather sternly that he still had homework to do that evening.

 

xXx

 

Dumbledore watched Harry slip out of the doors and waited for a moment before turning back to Pettifer and Ron.

"Thank you, gentlemen.  Before we leave - Ron, how would you say Harry is after his adventure over the weekend?"

Ron shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, taken by surprise by the question.  "He's okay, Professor.  A bit ...."  He hesitated.

Dumbledore looked at him over the top of his spectacles.  "Yes?"

"He's a bit, well, bolshie," Ron confessed.  "I talked to him yesterday and by the time I saw him he'd already chased off Zabini, Goldstein and Hermione.  Dead cranky he was.  He just won't hear it when you try to tell him he nearly did himself in with that Stunning Hex."

"I see.  What is his opinion of Mr. Malfoy and his friends?"

"Not much."  Ron grimaced.  "I reckon that's going to turn nasty, Sir.  Malfoy's been spouting off about how he and Nott fixed Harry on Saturday, and Harry's a bit gung-ho about it.  He gave me a load of cr- a load of talk about how he had to keep the other Slytherins' attention because otherwise Malfoy might be able to tell You-Know-Who that he had other people he could count on at school - stuff like that."

"You think he is merely justifying his dispute with Mr. Malfoy?"

"No."  Ron shook his head.  "Harry ... he doesn't justify what he does.  Not really.  I don't reckon he thinks he needs to make excuses - he's got a reason for doing stuff and that's good enough.  So if he says it's because of Voldemort, then he probably really thinks that."

"Indeed."  Dumbledore eyed him shrewdly.  "Of course, merely because he gives us that reason for his actions need not mean that it is his _only_ reason."

"Yeah," Ron said glumly.  "That's what bothers me."

"He must justify his actions to himself, then," Mr. Pettifer put in.  He shook his head, looking distressed.  "Such a complicated and unhappy approach to life.  I hesitate to say Machiavellian but …."

"Harry treats life as life has treated him, Petuarius, but he is still young enough and somewhat willing to be guided, provided that the ones guiding him use a light touch."  Dumbledore's tone was bracing.  "We make great progress already – a year ago he would have proven almost completely intractable.  Now, gentlemen, we all have other business to be about so shall we return to my office?"

They retraced their steps through the little passage to the Headmaster's office, where Dumbledore made Ron wait while Mr. Pettifer used the fireplace to Floo himself home.  Before he could leave it seemed that the professor had more to say to him.

"It occurs to me that our energetic Head Girl may, after the activities of the summer, not only decide to continue her Defence Association, but try to recruit Harry to it," Dumbledore said.

"She already tried, Sir, last term," Ron said, and he couldn't help a wry smile at the memory.  "It didn't go down too good with anyone.  Harry hated the idea and most of the other members didn't want him there anyway."

"I see.  Nevertheless, knowing Miss Granger I feel sure she will be undaunted by the initial setback," the professor said mildly, peering at Ron over the top of his spectacles again.

Ron thought that _undaunted_ was an understatement.  Hermione was more likely to take it as a challenge.

"Given our discussion a few moments ago regarding the dangers of including other pupils in Harry's training sessions, I have regretfully come to the conclusion that this would be undesirable.  You understand the danger?"

"He could give away a load of his tricks to people," Ron said.

"And in the process raise unanswerable questions as to where he learned those tricks in the first place," Dumbledore said.  "There has been some mild speculation in certain quarters already – fortunately nothing that can't be explained away, but it would be unwise to place Harry in a position where he cannot help but reveal things better left concealed.  Worse, it might undo much of our work in giving him an advantage in the first place."

"You want me to head her off, Sir," Ron said, guessing where this was going.

"It would be helpful if it could be achieved," the headmaster agreed, "and you are certainly the person best placed to do it.  But act with circumspection, Mr. Weasley – remember the importance of Miss Granger not knowing your full involvement with Order business.  If she cannot be deflected casually, other tactics must be employed."

Ron thought the likelihood of Hermione being 'deflected casually' from anything was next to nil.  From the lurking twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes, he thought so too.

"You may find it simpler to encourage Harry not to join the society," the headmaster suggested.  He gave Ron a small smile and picked up a little dish from the corner of his desk, offering it to the youth.  "Caramel Cracker?"

 

xXx

 

Ron tried to remember where he'd heard the phrase "six impossible things before breakfast".  "Two impossible things before dinner" might not have quite the same ring to it, of course, but he thought he understood the sentiment now.

Trying to persuade Hermione not to invite Harry to DA without telling her why was a non-starter.  He would suggest it was a bad idea if an opportunity arose (after Harry's negative reaction on the previous occasion, it wouldn't be hard to convince her that he wouldn't want to attend again) but if she was determined to carry on, and Ron had no doubts that she would be, pressing the matter would be risky.  Persuading Harry to refuse to attend was, as Dumbledore had suggested, the safer course although Ron might have to think of some stratagem and as Harry too wasn't supposed to know of Ron's involvement with the Order, it would have to be handled with tremendous care.

Feeling tired just at the thought, he took himself to Gryffindor Tower to have a shower and change before dinner.  He spent much of the meal and the Herbology lesson that followed with his mind elsewhere, enough that Hermione asked him twice if he was feeling all right, and when he declined to join her in the library afterwards, pleading (quite truthfully) exhaustion and the need to be up early for Quidditch practice the next day, she lost patience and pulled him aside in the common room.

"Are you _sure_ you're feeling all right?  What have you been doing since Potions?  You must have piles of homework to do, you could have used the free lesson - "

"Hermione ...."  Ron rubbed his eyes tiredly.  " _Shh!_ "

She shut up, folding her arms across her chest and looking annoyed.

"I _was_ using the free lesson," he continued after a moment.

"You weren't in the library - "

"Will you let me finish?"  Ron glanced around and dropped his voice.  "I got a note from Dumbledore, okay?  He wanted me to help with Harry's duelling lesson - like over the summer."

Hermione's eyes widened.  "Are they still teaching him then?"  Then she shook her head.  "Of course they are, he has to practice.  But goodness, it's a terrible risk inside the school!  What if someone sees?"

"It's okay, we weren't duelling in the main courtyard," Ron said wryly.

"No wonder you're tired."  She looked concerned now.  "Perhaps you should just go to bed.  How are you going to get all your homework done, though?"

"It's okay, I'm going to work in our dorm for a while first," he said, shrugging.  "It's mostly Charms and Transfiguration for tomorrow, I think I can manage."

"Do you need any books from the library?" she asked.  "Madam Pince will let me book out extras, she trusts me."

Ron gave her a grateful look.  "There's that one on Twisting Charms, if you can get me a copy ...."

"I'll see what I can find."  Hermione looked at him and sighed in exasperation.  "I suppose it's pointless to suggest you go straight to bed, and finish your homework tomorrow instead of playing Quidditch?"

"Pretty pointless, yeah."

"Well, try not to stay up too late."  She gave him a half-smile.  "How did it go?"

Ron grinned at her.  "Pretty bloody brilliant."

 

xXx

 

Trying to write on top of the bedcovers might not be an ideal way to do homework, but escaping the clutter of the library and noise of the common room was worth it.  Ron dug the largest of his textbooks out of his trunk and used that to rest his parchment on, and set to work on his Charms essay.  A small part of his brain still wanted to worry about how to deal with the task Dumbledore had set him, but he managed to suppress that fairly easily: Ron was no Hermione or Harry, to be tormented by his problems waking and sleeping, and having decided to set the matter aside for the time being, it generally _stayed_ put aside.

Neville entered the dormitory perhaps an hour later.  Ron grunted a greeting, but took no further notice of him, and would have been equally unmoved when Seamus and Dean joined them just after ten had they not been buzzing with speculation over something Dean had seen while on his patrol.  Ron having surrendered his prefect badge at the beginning of their sixth year in order to concentrate on Quidditch, Dean was now the second Gryffindor prefect in their year.

" - I've put him on the detention list, but what do you want to bet me that Snape takes him off it again?" he was saying as they both walked in.

"You should've just taken fifty points instead, that'd have hit them all where it really hurts," Seamus retorted.

"Yeah.  It's a pain in the arse that prefects can only take five points at a time."  Dean pulled his robe off and threw it onto his bed, stretching.  "What really pisses me off is they don't care who sees them doing stuff.  You should have seen the smirk on his gob when he saw me - he didn't give a shit and just laughed when I said he had a detention.  And of course, all the others laughed as well then.  I was waiting for one of them to try to hex me, but they just walked off."

"Who was that?" Neville asked, sitting up on the edge of his bed.

"Three guesses," Seamus said in a disgusted tone.

"Malfoy?"

"Take a prize," Dean said tiredly.

Ron looked up at Malfoy's name.

"What was he doing?" Neville wanted to know.

"Good question.  I pulled patrol on the third floor, North Wing, tonight.  It's pretty much a dead area, you know?  Full of empty classrooms and a couple of old staff halls that never get used.  Most of it's locked up, but we have to check it anyway in case anyone decides it's a good place to shag."

The hair prickled on the back of Ron's neck.  The little study room Harry had shown him was just off the third floor of the North Wing, and now that he thought about it, it was likely that the Lesser Great Hall was too.

"You'd have to be pretty desperate to shag there," Seamus muttered.

"It's quiet.  Some people don't care."  Dean shrugged.  "Anyway, I was halfway around when I caught Malfoy and his mates messing with the locks on some of the doors.  Looked like they were trying to get into one of the halls.  He didn't even bother to stop at first - I just got a mouthful of tripe from Parkinson and Nott while Crabbe and Goyle held me off.  He only stopped when the door disappeared completely."

"Did you report it to Goldstein?" Seamus asked.  He began to get undressed for bed.

"Of course.  Greengrass and Lilywhite were both there when I did it, and Lilywhite said he'd tell Zabini, but I'm not holding my breath."

"What could Zabini do though?" Neville asked curiously.

There was a pause.  Ron felt their eyes on him and pretended to keep his attention on his parchment.

"He could pass the information on to Potter.  It's what the Slytherin prefects do," Dean said finally.  "They report any trouble with the other Slytherins to whoever's head honcho in Slytherin and he supposedly deals with it, although I never saw Malfoy _or_ Higgs doing anything last year."  Another pause.  "Potter's supposed to be the big man this year, but Malfoy's still acting like he is and I don't think the other Slytherins know what's going on."

Seamus was a lot bolder than the other two.  After a moment he strolled over to Ron's bed and leaned against one of the posts.  Not having much choice about it, Ron looked up.

The Irishman's expression was studiously casual.  "So ... what do _you_ reckon's going on with Potter and Malfoy, Ron?"

Ron hoped his expression was as bland as he was trying to make it.  "Why are you asking me?" 

"Well, he's your mate, isn't he?"

"Is he?"

Silence.  Seamus rubbed his nose and looked across at Dean with raised brows, but Dean avoided his eyes, wary of both Ron and Seamus's tempers and of encouraging strife in their dormitory.  Neville too was looking in any direction but at Ron.

"I got the impression you were mates," Seamus said finally, folding his arms.  "Seemed like you were in each other's pockets last term."

"That was last term," Ron said in his most discouraging tone, and he pointedly turned back to his essay.

Seamus wasn't ready to let it go though.

"Oh!" he said, more casually than ever.  "Didn't you see him over the summer hols then?"

Ron put his quill down before he could crush it beyond repair.  He didn't like the tone of Seamus's question, because it sounded less of a question and more of a statement, but he couldn't think where Seamus of all people would have heard the details of Ron's unusually action-packed summer.

"I was in Egypt with my brother for the holiday, Finnigan," he said mendaciously, gritting his teeth.  "When was I supposed to see him?"

"So you don't know what's going on in Slytherin then?"

Ron lost his temper.  "Look, will you piss off and let me finish my homework?  I've got two essays to hand in tomorrow, and right now I couldn't care less what's going on in Slytherin so long as I don't have to watch it!  Okay?"

"Okay, okay, don't lose your wig!  Christ." 

Seamus retreated, bristling defensively, and Ron picked up his quill again.  But although the subject was dropped and the others eventually went about their business, Ron found he couldn't settle to study anymore.  He was uncomfortably aware that although Seamus and Dean had let the matter go, Neville seemed to be paying a lot of attention to him when he thought Ron wasn't looking.  He would have liked to say something, but the 'watching' wasn't overt and he didn't want to start another argument, so in the end he gathered up his parchment and text books and took them downstairs to the common room.

It was getting late and by pure chance Ron walked into the room just as Hermione was chasing a few straggling second and third years off to bed.  He bagged one of the seats near to the fireplace and, taking the hint, she joined him as soon as the room was empty.

"You should be in bed," she scolded as she sat down next to him.

"I would be, if Seamus and Neville would leave me alone," Ron grumbled.

"What's the matter with them?"

"Being bloody nosy.  Nev's worse than Seamus in some ways - at least Seamus comes out and says what he's thinking, but Nev just stares at me when he thinks I'm not looking."

Hermione frowned.  "What are they being nosy about?"

Ron glanced over his shoulder, but the common room was definitely empty.  All the same, he lowered his voice.  "Seamus was asking about Harry - wanting to know what's going on in Slytherin."

"Did you tell him?"

"No, of course not!  I couldn't if I wanted to, it's not like I really know anything.  But he was going on about me being friends with Harry."

"Well, the two of you weren't exactly subtle last term," Hermione noted dryly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron demanded, alarmed.

"Oh, Ron!  I'm not saying people think you're, you know, _together_ , but you were obviously friends and that's quite unusual, especially for boys."  Hermione shrugged.  "I know some of the girls have friends in different houses sometimes, but the boys mostly stick to their own houses.  And Gryffindors and Slytherins - well, we just don't mix, do we?"

"I suppose not, but ...."  Ron twisted his quill between his fingers.  "He asked me if I saw Harry over the holiday, and that's a bit weird because they all knew I was going to Egypt."  Ron saw an odd expression cross her face.  "What?"

Hermione looked hesitant.  "I don't want to jump to conclusions."

"Try me," Ron said, and when she looked reluctant he added, "Look, I need to know if someone's spouting off.  I can't put a lid on any rumours if I don't know how they started in the first place."

"You'd do better to let me deal with them," Hermione told him sternly.  "Besides, I don't _know_ that Seamus has really been told anything, it's just ... well, I've seen him talking to Ginny a few times since we came back to school."

Ron got an odd lurching sensation in his stomach.  "Why would Ginny tell him anything about me?"

"Because she's jealous," Hermione said at once.  She gave him a rather grim look.  "Ron ... you've got to look at it from her point of view.  She had a pretty boring holiday, you know.  First you were invited to go to Egypt by Bill and she wasn't.  Then she spent the first half of the summer almost completely on her own with your mum and dad, because most of her friends - including me - were doing other things, and you'd gone away for a change.  She spent a lot of time visiting your aunts and uncles, you know - only I think you _don't_ know because I'm sure it didn't occur to you to ask when you came home."

Ron reddened.  "Why would I ask her something like that?" he protested.

Hermione sighed.  "Never mind, Ron, that's not the point.  Just take it from me that she wasn't happy being dragged from one set of relatives to the next.  Then you came home, but instead of actually being at home like you normally are during the holidays, you spent most of your time at the Manor with Harry.  And again, she wasn't invited.  She wanted to come with me a couple of times, but your mum wouldn't let her and ... well, she was angry, Ron.  I can't blame her - she felt terribly left out, especially since no one would really tell her why.  Ginny's not stupid, you know.  Since she obviously wasn't allowed to know what was really going on, all I could tell her was that we were renovating the house, and of course it didn't make sense that she wasn't allowed to help with that, so I suppose she drew her own conclusions."  She gave him a candid look.  "Well, think about it.  I told her that we were spending a lot of time renovating the house where Harry Potter lives, and then your mother told her that she couldn't help and she wasn't to ask questions why.  What would you think?"

Ron slumped where he sat and looked up at the ceiling.  He could guess what his sister had thought and he knew her temper well enough to know she would have taken being deliberately excluded from things very badly. 

"Sometimes I think your mother doesn't realise Ginny isn't a little girl anymore," Hermione said carefully.  "I don't think it's a good idea to tell her she can't do things without at least giving her a proper reason why.  I know she doesn't want Ginny to get involved in Order business, but shutting her out completely when everyone else is obviously involved is a bit ... counter-productive, don't you think?"

"You know what Mum's like," Ron said, feeling very tired.  "She doesn't think any of us should be involved and if she could do it, she'd make sure we never even heard the words "Death Eaters"."

"Well, I think she shot herself in the foot a bit this time, because she told Ginny to spend more time with her family and since the only family really available was Fred and George, that's who Ginny spent time with."

Ron looked at her, alarmed.  "She's been hanging out with the twins?"

"And absorbing a lot of their prejudices."  Hermione gave him a warning look.  "Ron, they don't like Harry at all, and since we came back to school Ginny's said things that make me think – "

"She always had a really annoying crush on Harry," Ron interrupted.

"Not anymore.  She's really changed her tune about him over the last few weeks.  Before the summer holiday she didn't seem very bothered about you being friends with him, but now she's talking as though she's taken a serious dislike to him.  Considering how the twins are when they decide they don't like someone, I think it's something to be worried about."  Hermione paused and took a deep breath.  " Ron - I think - I think you should be wary of her.  I hate saying that because we're supposed to be friends, but until I can talk to her properly and find out what's going on with her, it might be safer."

"You think she told Seamus I spent half the summer with Harry?"

"That's the only way I can think of him hearing about it."

"Damn."  It hurt Ron more than he thought it would, knowing that his own sister might deliberately set out to hurt him.  It surprised him less with the twins – he knew better than most just how superficial their affections could be – but even telling himself that Ginny knew nothing of his connection to the Order of the Phoenix, and was merely expressing her own frustrations, didn't make it sting any less.  And it was alarming, perhaps more alarming than even Hermione realised, because in the process Ginny could so easily do real damage without intending to.  "I suppose we should be grateful it was only Seamus she told."

"It's only Seamus _so far_ ," Hermione pointed out.  "She has plenty of other friends, some of them in other houses.  I'll talk to her, Ron, but you have to be careful from now on."

"Yeah, right, got that," he said, rubbing his face.  "Christ … I'm going to have to leave this essay, I can't see straight to write."

"Have you done the Charms one?" she asked. 

"Yeah.  That's the first one I have to hand in.  I've got a free lesson and lunch after that, I could work on the Transfiguration one then."

Hermione half-smiled.  "You're getting organised at last!"

"Nah, that'll never happen."  Ron shook his head and stood up.  "I'm going back to bed.  With any luck the others'll all be asleep and I won't have to put up with any talk."

"Ron, before you go …."

Ron turned to look at her blearily.  "What?"

Hermione looked uncertain.  "Well … I was thinking, with all these extra skills Harry's picked up, he'd be an even bigger asset to DA this year.  Do you think – "

"Don't," Ron said sharply, before he could stop himself.  He saw her taken-aback expression and a warning bell went off in his head.  _Careful …._   He hadn't expected her to raise the subject so quickly after the conversation with Dumbledore though.  "Hermione, he won't do it.  You saw what happened last time."

She frowned.  "That was last term, Ron, and some of the objectors have left school now.  Besides, he agreed to teach us the Patronus Charm – "

"That was just a few of us, and he wasn't happy doing it even then.  I don't know how Goldstein talked him into it, but I just don't think he'll go for it again.  Especially with all this leadership-of-Slytherin crap going on."

Hermione was unmoved.  "I could at least ask him.  You never know."

"Fine, ask him."  Ron had known it would be impossible to stop her. 

"I will."

"Good."  He wondered if it would be better to try and prime Harry beforehand to refuse or just wait and see what happened.  "Better pick your moment.  You know what he's like."

"Only too well!" she grumbled, and Ron hid a tiny smile.

With any luck, Hermione would pick entirely the _wrong_ moment (which wouldn't be difficult, given how Harry generally seemed to feel about her) and he wouldn't have to intervene at all.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Over the past six years, Harry had become a master at avoiding contact with the other members of his house where possible, and it had become a habit that was difficult to shed.  His conscious mind knew that if he wanted to develop any facsimile of leadership over the others, he ought really to be more visible and available to them.  But it was second nature to go out of his way to avoid them, especially people like Malfoy, and this year in particular events were conspiring to make it difficult for him to be visible and available in any case.

So it was Thursday evening before Harry encountered significant numbers of the other Slytherins other than in the Great Hall for meals.  He returned to Slytherin after dinner to drop off his DADA texts and found the common room full of people.  This wasn't entirely surprising, as there had been an unexpected downpour just before dinner that was making it impossible to go outside that evening, but Harry was still taken by surprise at the amount of noise in the room.  On the other hand, this might be a good moment to post the schedules for Quidditch practice.  He headed for the dormitories, ignoring the pointed looks that followed him.

Blaise followed him into their dormitory.  Harry glanced up at him as he dumped his books on his bed and dragged his trunk out from underneath.

"Hey," he said by way of greeting.

"Potter," Blaise said coolly.

That didn't sound too friendly.  Harry unlocked his trunk and put the books away, and pulled out a change of clothes, the shrunken box containing his Animation projects, and the sheet of parchment containing the practice schedules he'd agreed with Professor Snape.  He locked the trunk again and pushed it back under his bed, then stood up and looked at the other youth.

"What's up?"

Blaise shrugged slightly.  "I was just wondering if you've decided to give up?"

Harry blinked.  "Give up what?"

"Leading the house."

"I didn't think I had," he said after a moment.  "Do _you_ think I have?"

"You don't seem to be putting much effort into it," Blaise observed.

"And that means …?"

"You're never around, Potter!  Have you any idea of the rumours that have been circulating since the weekend?  You've let Malfoy and Nott take the advantage and if you don't do something about them soon, you'll have lost the house completely!  They're listening to everything Malfoy says and you're not saying anything to contradict him – "

"They must be really easily led," Harry remarked.

"Not that easily led!" Blaise snapped back.  "I backed you, Potter. I did it because I believed when you said you'd do this you wouldn't break your word, but if I'd known you would act like this – "

"I haven't broken any word!" Harry retorted, stung.  "We've only been back at school for three weeks, Zabini – "

"Just _one_ week's too long when the leadership is at stake!  A _day_ is too long with the people we have to deal with.  He's grabbed the advantage, Potter, can't you see that?  If you don't act fast you won't be able to recover the ground at all!"

"I know he's grabbed the advantage, but I haven't had an opportunity to change that."  Harry sighed.  "Okay, you're the mastermind here.  What do you suggest we do?"

Blaise eyed him warily.  "You give your word you won't back away again?"

Harry gave him a sharp, angry look.  "I didn't exactly plan to end up in the infirmary, you know!  How the hell am I supposed to give my word something like that won't happen again?"

"It's not about accidents like that!  I understand that something happened that you didn't plan for and couldn't control, but you've got to see that you can't just let days go by afterwards without at least trying to salvage the situation."  Blaise made an angry sound in his throat.  "I gave you my faith, Potter – is it so unreasonable for me to ask commitment from you in return?  Why should I stick my neck out for you, if you won't do the same for me?"

Something in this argument resonated for Harry, no matter how unwilling he might be otherwise.  He could understand a demand for reciprocation in a bargain.

"All right," he said, after a lengthy moment of consideration.  "I'll give you my word that I'll make an effort from now on.  But Zabini …."

Blaise tilted his head curiously at Harry's tone.  "Yes?"

"I want your word of honour in return," Harry said, and he caught and held the other boy's eyes with his own.  "You have to understand that I have secrets and I won't always be able to tell you everything that's going on.  And if I _do_ tell you something, I have to be able to trust you not to betray me.  To anyone.  Is that understood?"

Blaise hesitated – then he straightened his shoulders and walked around the end of Harry's bed.  He held out his hand, palm up.

"You have my solemn word as the heir of the House of Zabini that I'll not betray you."

It was a formal oath.  He was giving Harry his word on his family's name, something far more important to most members of the First Families than a casual promise; it was implicit that breaking it would besmirch far more just than Blaise himself.  It would bring dishonour on every other Zabini.

Harry clasped his hand in return.  Having been mostly raised by Muggles his own feelings about a formal oath were far more nebulous, but knowing how Blaise must feel about giving his sworn word he couldn't treat the giving of it lightly.

"Then you have my word as a Potter that I'll do my best for you in return."

Blaise nodded just once and stepped back, releasing Harry's hand.  Feeling slightly silly, and annoyed with himself for it, Harry stepped back too. 

"Give me a minute to get changed, yeah?  I was going to go to the library, but maybe I'd better make myself visible here."

"Good idea," Blaise said mildly.

Taking a towel, Harry went into the bathroom to have a sketchy wash and change out of his uniform.  When he returned Blaise was sitting on his bed with an odd look on his face.

"Potter, your diary's vibrating."

Surprised and a little annoyed, Harry picked the journal up and opened it.  Several new entries flashed up almost at once: lessons with Professor Flitwick the following evening and on Saturday afternoon, and one with the Headmaster on Sunday morning that actually had a note on it saying _Bring books_.  A legilimancy lesson?  Intriguing.

Then he looked up and saw that he wasn't the only one who was intrigued.  Harry closed the journal quickly, wondering for the first time what Dumbledore had said to Blaise after he left the infirmary on Sunday morning.  It was impossible to know how much Blaise already knew or guessed, or how much it was safe to tell him.  Even if he was completely honest – rare for a Slytherin, in Harry's experience, but not impossible – there was still the Voldemort-based risk factor in telling him about anything from the Animation to the private lessons.  Although Ron and even Granger already knew and the risk to Blaise could hardly be worse.

It seemed that Blaise knew when to push and when to back away, though.

"You're still sleeping with the spider," he said, surprising Harry.

Harry looked up at Phoebe's web and grinned.  "She hasn't bitten me yet and there are a lot less rodents all of a sudden."  Perhaps he could test Blaise's loyalty with this relatively insignificant secret.  Harry took his wand out and flicked a silencing charm on the door, just in case.  "She did bite me a couple of times while I was getting her used to being handled."

Blaise's eyes widened, then he nodded his understanding.  "You had it de-venomed.  I wondered, but that's an expensive bit of doctoring and I didn't think any magical pet shop in England did it."

"My godfather Remus did it for me – werewolves are immune to the venom.  And I didn't have to buy her, there was a nest of them in the wine cellar."

"You have an interesting life, don't you?"

"Not one I'd choose," Harry replied shortly.  He pulled out his trunk and unlocked it again.  Since he was staying in the common room after all, there would be no opportunity to work on his Animation projects or read Dumbledore's book on legilimancy, so he pulled out his latest batch of DADA homework to work on instead.  "Come on then – if I'm going to be visible, I can't do it in here."

Harry was conscious of tension as he and Blaise left the dormitory; not an inner tension caused by the stress of facing his housemates, although that was present too, but an external sensation pressing in on him.  For a moment he worried that it might be Voldemort readying an attack, but it didn't feel right for that, and as they approached the common room he realised it was still a familiar feeling - a tense, hot, staticky edge to the air around him.

It was a storm.  Here in the dungeons he might not be able to hear or see it, but he was almost as sensitive to storms as he was to illusions and other ambient magics.  So it came as no surprise to find the common room full to bursting point when they walked in.  All the hair came up on the back of Harry's neck, both from the noise and proximity of other people and from the curious _pfiz-tzing_ sensation of the storm-charged air around him.  He had to fight his way through the throng to reach the big noticeboard on the wall by the door and as he pinned up the list of practice sessions he couldn't work out if the crawling sensation up and down his spine was because of people staring at him or because of the storm.  Probably it was a bit of each.

Blaise had bagged one of the tables over by the fireplace.  Harry had to push his way back there, wishing fervently that people would just do what they _should_ be doing on a Thursday evening and go the library to revise or something, instead of hanging around in the common room.  He was already thinking this was a bad idea; his hackles were up from all the eyes that were furtively following him and the storm was setting his teeth on edge.  Not a good combination.

"The last time it was a zoo like this in here, someone set fire to a couch," Blaise commented, as Harry took a seat opposite him.  He didn't look like he particularly liked the crowd either.

"Don't give me ideas," Harry retorted.  He dragged his textbooks across the table and began flicking through the top one to find the assigned pages of reading for his essay.  He wasn't particularly impressed with DADA so far this year.  Having spent part of his summer holiday duelling real Aurors, he couldn't helping thinking his school assignments were lacking something.  And why were the creators of the school syllabus so fixated on the Goblin Wars?

In the background he was aware that Malfoy and his fan-club were forming a noisy cluster over by the square of couches in the centre of the room.  Every so often a burst sniggering laughter floated over; Harry could hear them talking and probably could have worked out what was being said had he cared to try, but he couldn't be bothered.  If it was relevant to him, he was pretty sure he'd soon know about it.

Turning another page, he wondered if it was really necessary for him to know that only iron-bladed weapons could kill goblins, and that there were no less than eleven separate spells that could mimic an iron-bladed weapon if you preferred not to get your hands dirty.

"Quill's blunt," Blaise muttered.  "Do you have a penknife I could borrow?"

Harry dug in his pocket and pulled out his penknife.  It wasn't the brilliant one that could undo locks and knots that Sirius had given him the first Christmas he'd spent at the Manor (that one had been destroyed during the Ministry of Magic fiasco at the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts) but a simple bone-handled knife with a single blade, given to him by Remus.  He passed it across the table and went back to his book.

Malfoy's voice was getting more and more strident in the background.

 _… it is necessary to ensure that the spinal cord is completely severed and the vertebrae crushed –_

" – reflected the hex straight back at him, and he was knocked cold for a good ten minutes!  _That's_ how clever the mighty Potter is, his own spells knock him out.  As for why he ends up in the infirmary so often – well, if you can't recognise an attention-seeker when you see one …."

Blaise's fingers stilled on the penknife and quill.  Harry looked up and saw the other youth's rigid expression.  Feeling quite calm, Harry pushed his book away and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head deliberately for a moment.  The feeling of eyes on the back of his neck was stronger than ever, as though everyone in the room was looking at him.  The waves of noise, chatter, Gobstones spurting and snap cards exploding, seemed to die down expectantly.  He waited.  Something was about to happen; it had to, he knew it and so did everyone else.

"Is that right, Potter?"

Tracy Davis.  Harry reflected that he couldn't have hooked a better fish if he'd tried.  He half-turned in his seat to look at her; she avoided his gaze, fixing her eyes on the pack of Tarot cards she was shuffling.  Her friends were all watching with wary anticipation.

"Is what right, Davis?"

"What Malfoy said.  About Nott's shield charm."

"You were on the Quidditch pitch," he told her reasonably.  "What do you think?"

Her eyes flicked to him quickly and back to her cards.  "Don't know, do I?  I'm just asking."

Harry looked across to Malfoy's gang.  Nott was sprawled on the corner of one couch next to Gregory Goyle, smirking.  He raised his voice slightly.

"What do you think, Nott?"

Nott hesitated for a split second and his eyes went to Malfoy.  Malfoy raised his brows.  The smirk widened.

"I think you're the one who ended up in the infirmary, Potter."

"That's not what I was asking."  Harry got up and casually took a few steps towards the group.  "I was asking if you reckon it's possible to put up a reflecting shield charm when you're already stunned yourself."

There was a pause and everyone's eyes went to Nott, whose silly grin began to slip.

"I wasn't stunned," he said, looking from Harry to Malfoy.

"Right.  Anyone want to take a vote on that?"  Harry glanced around.  "What about it?  There were enough of you lot on the pitch on Saturday, _some_ of you must have seen what happened.  Maybe we should just put it to the test.  Davis, what about it?  Do you reckon Nott's quick enough to stick up a shield charm before I can hex him?"

Harry flicked his right hand in a move Sirius had spent nearly a full day teaching him and his wand fell into his palm.  He was aiming at Theo Nott before anyone quite realised what was happening.

 _"Petrificus totalis."_

Nott went rigid where he sat and rolled off the couch, landing on the floor with a heavy thud.

"Guess not," Harry said sardonically, into the thick silence. 

It was broken by Pansy shrieking and throwing herself to the floor beside Nott.  " _Theo!_   You let him go!" she screeched at Harry furiously.  "You let him go _this minute_ , Potter!"

" _You_ let him go!" Harry retorted scornfully.  "Are you a witch or a squib, you stupid bint?  You've got a wand, haven't you – or do you only use Malfoy's these days?"

"How dare you!"  Pansy turned to Malfoy quickly.  "Draco, are you going to let him do this?" 

Harry let out a rude crack of laughter.  "Christ, it's like something out of a bad Muggle soap opera!  Come on then, Malfoy – bring it on!"

Malfoy was on his feet, his face white with fury.  "Back off, Potter!"

"No, you back off!"  A wild laugh was gathering in Harry's chest, a feeling that was somewhere between excitement and hysteria.  It was a farce, a pathetic parody of a showdown, and yet a part of him felt the same kind of thrill at the confrontation as he felt when he was performing a breakneck dive on his broomstick. 

"I'm warning you!"

"What are you going to do?" Harry taunted him.  "Come on, Malfoy, I know you've got a hex or two in you somewhere – show us all that you're the bigger wizard!  Or can you only hex people when their backs are turned?"

Malfoy pulled his wand out of his robes with a hand that shook with rage – or possibly something else.  Harry experienced a jolt of pity for him then, but it wasn't the kindly sort.  It was the kind of pity prompted only by contempt.

And suddenly Blaise was at his elbow.  "Potter, I think you should let it go," he said, and his voice was tense.

"I'm not doing anything," Harry said, and he grinned nastily at Malfoy.  "It's up to him now.  What do you reckon, Malfoy?"

"You've made your point," Blaise insisted.  "Drop it before things get out of hand."

Harry's eyes never left Malfoy's face.  "I'm game if he is."

"Malfoy -"

"Shut up, Zabini!  You're nothing but a bootlicking blood-traitor."

Blaise stiffened, and the tension in the room ratcheted up a notch.

"Now _that_ ," Harry said, humour vanishing, "was really rude."

"No, you don't!" Millicent Bulstrode's voice said suddenly.

"Get off me, you stupid bitch!"

"Drop it!"

Harry glanced over, startled, and saw Millicent pouncing on Pansy who had just furtively pulled her wand out.  The moment's distraction was all Malfoy needed –

 _"Inflammore!"_

All hell broke loose.

 

xXx

 

"Six Slytherin students in the infirmary – four with serious burns, one with his jaw wired shut, and one suffering from leprosy.  A further twelve students with various minor injuries that have been treated and dismissed from the infirmary.  Two paintings, a tapestry, a couch and two chairs damaged beyond repair.  Numerous soft furnishings ripped, scorched or otherwise mutilated.  And the entire House of Salazar Slytherin brawling like drunken Muggles in the Common Room and dormitories, to the point where the prefects were forced to summon assistance to restore order."

Harry wisely kept his mouth shut.  He'd seen Professor Snape in this kind of temper only once or twice before and knew that interrupting him would only make it worse.  Besides, there was little he could say beyond self-justification and Harry hadn't tried to justify his actions to the Potions Master since his first year at Hogwarts.  Snape despised snivellers and tale-bearers - which, in fairness, was a sentiment Harry could easily relate to.

He only wondered that some of his housemates could have failed to notice Snape's feelings on whining over the years.  It wasn't as though the Potions Master took any pains to hide them.

"It was Potter!"  Pansy Parkinson was a snotty-faced mess; she hadn't stopped grizzling and screeching since the whole fiasco began.  "He started it - he hexed Theo and taunted Draco - "

"Be silent!"  The sudden snap, after the dangerous softness of his previous words, took Pansy aback and she subsided.  "Potter."

"Sir?"

"Did you hex Theodore Nott?"

"Yes, Sir."

Harry met Snape's furious eyes as calmly as he could manage.  There was no point in denying it, after all.  His wand signature would be all over the _Petrificus_ he'd cast.  Nott had been released from it by now, of course, but he was still in the infirmary; he was the lucky pupil cursed with leprosy.

"I see."  Snape's voice took on an edge of ice that made Harry wince inwardly.  "And am I to understand that you are also responsible for the Jaw-Locking Curse inflicted upon Mr. Malfoy?"

Malfoy was the one in the infirmary with his jaws wired shut.

"I don't know, Sir," Harry said.  Which was perfectly true; he supposed it was _possible_ that he'd wired Malfoy's jaws, because he knew that his magic had run out of his control for several minutes, thanks to the general mêlée and the influence of the storm, but he didn't consciously know a curse to wire jaws.  Of course, now that he knew one existed he'd have to look it up.  Could be useful.

"You don't know," Snape said, and his tone was almost poisonous.  "Are you denying it?"

"No, Sir."  Harry gritted his teeth for a split second.  "I don't know any jaw-locking curses and I don't remember casting it, but it could have been me."

He got the impression that Snape would have liked to say something in response to this, but was restraining himself.  The professor drew himself upright, taut as a wire, and his eyes raked across the assembled group - Harry, Pansy, Blaise, Tracy and a handful of others who were almost completely unscathed by the conflict - like sprayed acid.

"Zabini, Greengrass, Lilywhite, Yaxley, Sweeney - you are dismissed."

That was all but one of the prefects, those who had acted to try and stop the fight when it broke out.  Blaise gave Harry a worried look, but followed the others out of Snape's office.

"Miss Parkinson."  Snape's voice was harsh.  "Testimony from your peers offers a strong suggestion that you were at least partially responsible for inciting this incident and for hindering a prefect who was attempting to prevent it.  Thirty points from Slytherin and you will report to Professor Sprout this evening to begin a week's detention.  Dismissed!"

Pansy sniffled, shot a venomous glare at Harry, and departed.

"Miss Borgin."  Snape's voice was colder than ever as he stared at the dark-haired fifth year.  She was the only prefect not to have followed Blaise's command to break up the fight, instead falling in on Malfoy's side.  "The Headmaster feels - and I agree - that you are lacking in the proper sense of responsibility required of a prefect in this school.  Worse, in my opinion, is that you have colluded in an event which brings shame upon your house - "

"Professor - " she protested, but he made a quick slashing motion with one hand and she fell silent.

"I'm uninterested in explanations, Miss Borgin.  Hand over your badge."

Borgin hesitated, looking mutinous, then unpinned her prefect's badge and handed it over sullenly.

"Twenty points from Slytherin.  Report to Mr. Filch this evening for detention.  Dismissed."

She left, also casting a dark look at Harry.

"Miss Davis."  Tracy was radiating tension as the Potions Master turned to her.  "If you think I have forgotten your talent for variations on the Jelly Legs Hex, you are mistaken.  Ten points from Slytherin, and in future I suggest you consider carefully where your loyalties lie and in what manner you choose to express them.  Dismissed."

Tracy's jaw was clenched as she headed for the door.

That just left Harry himself.  And as the door closed behind Tracy and all of Snape's attention came to bear on him, he realised that this was probably going to be very bad indeed.

 

xXx

 

 **19 th September – 26th September 1997**

 

"Is it even possible to be in negative points?" Ginny was asking at the breakfast table the following morning, when Ron arrived.  Ron didn't have to ask what she was talking about; he'd seen Slytherin's sudden and dramatic point loss for himself as he entered the Great Hall, and the whole school was buzzing.

"What's happened?" he asked Hermione quietly, under the cover of all the talk.

She shook her head, looking disgusted.  "There was a riot in the Slytherin Common Room last night."

Ron dropped the piece of toast he had just picked up.  "A _what?_ "

"You heard me.  Malfoy and Potter decided to have a showdown and the whole house took sides.  Tony and I got called off patrol to help the Slytherin prefects try to stop it and Professor Snape had to use the Lockdown Charm.  It hasn't been used at Hogwarts in over a hundred years!"

"What the hell's the Lockdown Charm when it's at home?"

"You should have got some of the rest of us off patrol to help," Dean said to Hermione before she could reply to Ron.

She gave him an exasperated look.  "Yes, of course - because what we all really _needed_ was for the rest of the school to join in!"

"Hey!" Dean protested.

Ron tugged on Hermione's sleeve impatiently.  "Lockdown Charm?" he repeated.

"If you'd bothered to read _Hogwarts: A History_ , you would already know that there are Lockdown Charms on all the main gathering places around the school," she said crossly.  "The senior staff and Headmaster can activate the charm if a riot or brawl happens - it acts a bit like a Stunning Hex or Full Body Bind, everyone's frozen in place until it's lifted."

"But how did it start?" Seamus wanted to know.

"I told you already - Potter and Malfoy decided to have a pissing contest and their supporters all joined in!  Now will you _please_ all get on with your breakfast, before one of the professors starts taking points from us too?"

Ron blinked, surprised to hear Hermione use the word "pissing" in a public place.  Her face was tight and angry, and after a moment the others subsided and struck up conversations elsewhere.  Clearly it was _the_ hot topic of the morning, though, and when Ron looked across the hall to the Ravenclaw table he saw that Tony Goldstein was looking equally fed up as he pushed his breakfast around his plate.

"Was it that bad?" Ron asked Hermione softly.

"It's not that," she muttered back after a moment.  "It was just so _stupid_.  I don't think half of them really understood what they were fighting about, they were just throwing curses around because everyone else was.  Most of the first years were terrified - they barricaded themselves into one of the dormitories and I thought I was going to have to break the door down to get to them when it was all over.  And after we got everything settled and started sorting out the damage, Tony and Zabini found that someone - or more likely, _several_ someones - had taken advantage of the fighting to raid the dormitories and steal from people."

Ron winced.  While he wasn't exactly surprised that a Slytherin would be so opportunist, robbery of their own housemates left a nasty taste in the mouth.

"So who's getting the blame for all this?" he asked, although he had a sinking feeling that he knew.

"Harry and Malfoy primarily, although Parkinson and some of the others are in almost as much trouble.  They've each had thirty points taken and been given detention.  Professor Snape said he'd deal with Potter and Malfoy personally, but I think the Headmaster has got involved."

"He was there then?" Ron said, a little surprised for Dumbledore hadn't been mentioned until now.

Hermione sighed.  "Of course he was there, Ron, it was a _riot_.  Where else would he be?"

There was a sudden stir and they both looked up to see what was happening.  On the far side of the Great Hall Harry appeared, accompanied by Blaise Zabini and a couple of other Slytherins.  He looked perfectly cool and unconcerned by all the sudden attention, but this didn't surprise Ron or Hermione for they both knew Harry's ability to keep a smooth face in all sorts of situations.

Then every Slytherin already sitting at their table - roughly two thirds of the house that morning - stood up as Harry passed.  Some of them didn't look especially willing and Pansy Parkinson was pulled to her feet by Millicent Bulstrode, but they stood nevertheless until Harry reached his place and gave them a tiny nod of acknowledgement.  They all sat down again and continued with their breakfasts as though nothing had happened.

After a moment or two conversations at the other tables started again, but very distractedly and with an underlying buzz of excitement.

"Marvellous," Hermione said grimly.  "Typical Slytherins - rewarding someone for being impossible and behaving downright dangerously ...."

Ron raised his brows at her.  "Would you prefer Malfoy then?"

"That's not the point, Ron!"  She pushed her plate away and gathered up her belongings.  "I'll see you at lunchtime I suppose."

And she stalked off to her first class, leaving Ron to shrug wryly in response to the curious looks the others gave him.  He decided he would try and speak to Harry in Divination.

But Harry was late to Divination that morning.

 

xXx

 

"I'm not sure what disturbs me more about this incident, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said levelly, "the fact that it occurred at all, or the fact that you allowed your magic to escape your control to such a degree."

He faced Harry from across the breadth of his desk, something which hadn't happened since Ron's accident in March.  Professor Snape sat to one side, his face still set in an expression somewhere between an iceberg and a thundercloud.  At the Headmaster's words, he made a tiny sound of annoyance in his throat but otherwise remained silent.

Dumbledore's only reaction to this was to add, with unusual dryness, "That you are utterly unrepentant of your role in the events of last night is, regrettably, not unexpected at all."

As it was unclear whether Dumbledore expected a response to this, Harry decided to remain silent.  He didn't justify himself to the Headmaster any more than he did to Snape.  What he had done, he had done; it wasn't as though he could undo it, after all.  And it was perfectly true that he didn't particularly regret it.  The only surprise was that Sirius hadn't been summoned to the school - although it occurred to Harry that Dumbledore hadn't done so because he couldn't be sure that Sirius would react the way he hoped to the news that his godson had started a riot.

"The last pupil to start a riot at Hogwarts was expelled," Dumbledore continued after a moment.  He looked at Harry over the top of his spectacles and for once his eyes weren't twinkling.  They looked rather grim.  "Perhaps you could give me a cogent reason as to why the same punishment should not be meted out to you?"

The threat didn't give Harry the chill it might once have done, and he suspected Dumbledore knew that.  Given that he'd been in two minds whether to return to school anyway, the only reason he could come up with was "inconvenient to other people", but he wasn't foolish enough to say that out loud.  And now that he was of age his wand couldn't arbitrarily be snapped anyway.  He raised his chin slightly.

"You don't have to expel me, Professor.  If you want me to leave, I'll go."

Snape made another angry sound, louder than the first, but the Headmaster was unmoved by Harry's statement.

"No, I shan't do that," he said, and something in his gaze made Harry feel just a touch of unease.  "You have chosen to pursue the crown of Slytherin and now that you have won it, you will have to wear it - with all that implies.  You wish us all to believe that you are not a despot in the making.  Very well.  But given your actions of late, you cannot expect us to believe that now without proof.  You will find, Harry, that leadership is not merely a matter of ruling the roost, nor yet a matter of cowing those beneath you into submission.  It is not a matter of power, but of how one uses it.  And with power come responsibilities.

"From now on, the conduct of Slytherin House is _your_ responsibility.  Whenever your fellow Slytherins step out of line, _you_ will be held ultimately responsible for their misbehaviour - and when I say "your fellow Slytherins", Harry, I refer to all of them, including those who oppose you.  Should the prefects look for guidance, they will be told to refer to you first.  Should the younger members of your house seek assistance, it will be your responsibility to help them.  Should any kind of disorder occur, any inter-house disagreements, pranks or bullying involving Slytherins, you will find yourself accounting for it personally.  Am I making myself clear to you?"

Harry stared at Dumbledore and felt his mouth go dry.  "Yes, Sir," he managed.

"Excellent."  Dumbledore stood up and both Snape and Harry were consequently obliged to rise to their feet too.  "Professor Snape, your first class will shortly be starting.  I shouldn't like to delay you."

"Headmaster," Snape said dryly, but his eyes were fixed on Harry's mockingly as he took his leave.

There was a long pause after the door closed behind him.

Finally Dumbledore said calmly, "Well, Harry? Are you ready to take on your new responsibilities?"

Harry wasn't quite sure what to say.  Which was just as well, because his jaws felt more securely glued together than Malfoy's were right at that moment.

Dumbledore peered at him over the top of his spectacles again, and now the twinkle was back in his pale blue eyes.  "Come now," he said kindly.  "I feel sure you will find it a useful and rewarding experience."

Feeling quite unequal to answering this, all Harry could say was, "May I go now, Professor?  I have Divination - "

"Professor Trelawney has, I'm sure, already excused your predicted absence," the Headmaster told him cheerfully.  "We have an appointment with your first leadership responsibility in the infirmary.  Mr. Malfoy really cannot spend another night with his jaws wired shut."

 

xXx

 

With Harry arriving at Divination just after the second hour started, there was no opportunity for he and Ron to speak to each other.  Following lunch Harry had Potions, which was normally a reasonable lesson in spite of Professor Snape, but today his potions partner - Tony Goldstein - was once again monosyllabic and radiating annoyance at him.

Harry was agitated enough on his own account; Tony's attitude only irritated him more.  He spent his free period simmering over his Animation and Legilimancy books, before meeting Blaise and heading to the Great Hall for dinner.

Malfoy was there.  He'd skipped lunch (Harry had seen Pansy slipping a napkin of sandwiches into her bag when she thought no one was looking) but dinner was almost unavoidable if he didn't want to leave Harry completely in possession of the high ground.  The look in his eyes as Harry took his usual seat opposite him was venomous.

Harry was strongly reminded of their encounter in the infirmary that morning under Dumbledore's watchful gaze.  Madam Pomfrey hadn't been able to lift either the Jaw-Locking Curse or Nott's leprosy, even though it shouldn't have taken more than a _finite incantatem_ in either case.  This had happened once before, when Harry cursed someone - ironically, Nott again - with a Bat-Bogey Hex and refused to remove it afterwards.  The hex had eventually been removed, of course, but it hadn't occurred to Harry until now to wonder why such a simple spell should have become so solidly fixed on its target in the first place.

Even under the Headmaster's watchful eye, he had initially resisted lifting the curse from Malfoy, although that had mostly been a performance for Malfoy's benefit.  Harry wanted him to know that only Dumbledore's intervention had saved him from being fed through a straw for the rest of the term.  Lifting the hex had been simple; it was only afterwards, when Dumbledore told him in a tone that brooked no defiance that they would be discussing the responsibilities that came with unusual magical strength, that he realised something unusual had happened.

Not long ago Harry would have been delighted to know that he was an unusually powerful wizard whose hexes were strong enough that an average witch or wizard couldn't countermand them.  But since the summer holiday, when he'd discovered that sometimes his power was augmented or restricted through his link to Lord Voldemort, any pleasure he might have felt had become tempered with suspicion and anxiety.  Great power was useful only if it was predictable, reliable and, more importantly, _controllable_.  Too much rested on these details for him to feel any kind of elation: his credibility with his teachers and peers; his personal safety, if he couldn't back up knowledge and skills with vital strength at a crucial moment; his future position in the community at large if he couldn't master himself and at least give the appearance of being under control and non-threatening.

He was starting to feel that he had enough different worries to merit prioritising them.  In fact, Harry was beginning to wonder if he should just schedule time to worry about them into his diary; it would surely be simpler.

For the time being, however, until he was summoned by Dumbledore, there were his new responsibilities to his own house to consider, the first of which was the fall-out from the disturbance the previous evening. 

With one eye on Malfoy, Harry said casually to Blaise, "Do me a favour, would you?  Pass the word that there's going to be a meeting in the common room tonight, about eight o'clock-ish.  Everyone there, no exceptions."

"If anyone wants me this evening," Malfoy said to Pansy, raising his voice slightly, "I'll be studying in the library until curfew."

Without missing a beat, Harry added to Blaise, "If you have any trouble with anyone, tell 'em I know this nice little hex that gives the victim scabies and I'm not afraid to use it."

 

xXx

 

The common room was full when Harry walked in just before eight o'clock; if there was anyone missing, he couldn't see it.  Even Malfoy and his friends were there, albeit that they had bagged one of the tables on the farthest edge of the room and were pretending to ignore everyone else.

"Nice one," Harry said to Blaise, a little impressed in spite of himself.

"Wasn't difficult," Blaise replied, but there was a note of satisfaction in his voice.

"Good."  Harry strolled to the middle of the room, fished a footstool out from under a nearby table and cast a strengthening charm on it before stepping on to it.  He would have preferred not to have to do it this way, but he simply wasn't tall enough to be seen by everyone otherwise.  The chatter died down almost immediately, though, which surprised him a little.

"Thanks for coming," he said mildly after a moment.  "This won't take long."

"It'd take even less time if you'd shut up and go away," Malfoy said in a bored voice, not even bothering to turn around to face Harry.

" _You_ shut up, Malfoy," a sixth year girl said in a hostile tone.

"That'll do, thanks," Harry said warningly, and she shut up, folding her arms.  "All right, then," he continued after a moment.  "I know last night was a barrel of laughs for most of us, but it got a bit out of hand and some of us had a bit too _much_ fun in the end.  Stuff got broken, people got hurt, etcetera, etcetera.  I spoke to the Headmaster this morning and he made it clear that he'd prefer it if we only have parties like that once in a while - say once a century or so.  And Professor Snape wasn't too happy about the damage or the number of people who had to see Madam Pomfrey.  You've got to admit they've got a point.  So - no more riots, thanks."

" _You_ started it," Tracy Davis said sharply.

"Yeah, and now I'm finishing it.  All right?"  Harry caught her eyes and held them for a moment, and she subsided.  "Good!  But aside from that, some stuff happened last night that made us look bad in front of some people from outside Slytherin, and I'm opposed to that on principle.  I'm pretty sure you all know what I'm talking about - somebody decided it'd be clever to nick things from the dormitories while everyone else was distracted."

Harry paused for a second, seeing a multitude of expressions flashing across various faces.  He glanced down at Blaise.  "Have you got a list of what was taken?"

Blaise took a sheet of parchment out of his pocket and gave it to Harry, who scanned it for a moment.  Then he held it up. 

"There's quite a bit of stuff on here, so I reckon it was more than one of you who did it.  But I'm not really all that interested in who did it, because it doesn't matter."  He raised his brows slightly.  "There are tracking spells that can find all of the stuff that was taken, but if Professor Snape has to use them he'll recommend that the thieves are suspended."

Which was a lie, but since the common room was suddenly so quiet that Harry could hear his own breathing, he felt no particular compunction about it.  The end justified the means.

"There's an alternative," he said blandly.  "I'm going to stick a box on the table over there with a ward on it that allows things to be put inside but not taken out.  I don't care who took what from where - just make sure that whatever you took is inside that box by lunchtime tomorrow.  Remember, I know what was taken and who it really belongs to.  And if there's anything missing from the list when I look inside that box tomorrow, I won't bother reporting it to Professor Snape.  I'll do a bit of tracking myself and when _I_ catch the person responsible, they'll find themselves drinking their meals through a straw for a while.  Won't they, Malfoy?"

Silence.

"That's all," Harry said, smiling, and he stepped down from the footstool.

 

xXx

 

The following morning Harry awoke early.  It was Saturday and he had Quidditch practice shortly, but that wasn't for another hour and he wondered what had woken him.  Then something ticklish brushed his left hand and he sat up sharply. 

Rosebud sat back on her haunches and regarded him quizzically.  There was a rolled-up bit of paper sticking out of her collar.

Grateful for the curtains that enclosed his bed, Harry sat back against his pillows and lifted the kneazle into his lap.  Now that she was fully grown her fur was thick and plush, like the deepest piled velvet, and he scratched a spot behind her elegant curved ears with one hand, while he removed the note with the other.  Ron was brief.

 

 _Can we meet today?  Hermione thinks she might know what that cabinet thing in your hidden room is, and she wants to ask you something anyway.  I wouldn't mind a chat either._

 _R._

 

He sounded tired, even on paper.  Harry wondered what his friend was making of all the upheavals in Slytherin; it occurred to him that it might look a bit worrying to someone who was only seeing and hearing things at second-hand.

Well, he'd planned to spend a couple of hours in the hidden study room today, working on his Animation projects, so it might work out quite well.  And ... Harry wanted to see Ron.  Preferably alone and somewhere more comfortable than a study room.  There was the Quidditch practice and a lesson with Flitwick later, but that still left a few free hours in the day ….  Harry found a quill and scribbled a quick reply to Ron on the back of his note, then rolled it up again and tucked it back into Rosebud's collar.

Then he pulled his bed curtains back and set about his morning routine.

Quidditch practice went remarkably well.  Harry made a point of praising the team a little, unlike the previous captains Higgs and Flint, but he was careful not to go too far.  They were a promising bunch, but there was still a lot of shaping up to do before their first game.  He lingered in the changing rooms afterwards until the others had cleaned up and left, then checked his Invisibility Cloak was in his kit bag before setting off for the third floor.

Obedient to his instructions, Ron had taken Hermione to the third floor but they were waiting in one of the abandoned classrooms.  Harry could hear the Head Girl talking about Intexometry as he approached.

" ... personally think a magic that involves weaving, knotting and textiles could be _tremendously_ useful, but I suppose a discipline that could potentially use someone's clothes against them was considered too risky to teach in regular lessons - "

"Nothing to stop you finding a book and boning up on it in your spare time, Granger," Harry said, removing his Invisibility Cloak as he walked through the classroom door.  "If you even _have_ any spare time, that is."

Hermione jumped and frowned as he appeared seemingly out of nowhere, but when she saw him folding up the shimmering cloth of the cloak, she gave a little nod as though confirming something she'd suspected all along.

"That explains a lot," she said coolly.

"I'll bet it does."  Harry gave Ron a quick smile.  "You okay?"

Ron's expression was a little odd, and he just shrugged in response to the question.  "We need to talk, mate," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah.  But not right now."

Harry gave him a wary, cockeyed look but let it go.

"Which way did you come up here?" he asked.  "You've got to remember to be careful - the room's warded, but there are always people sniffing about, especially Malfoy.  He's a dickhead, but he's not completely stupid and he's pretty good with charms.  I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt on anything, even where Dumbledore's wards are concerned."

Hermione raised a brow.  "Aren't we a little paranoid?"

Harry frowned.  "Any wards Dumbledore sets in the castle - any wards _anyone_ sets - can only be pinned over the top of the castle wards.  The castle wards can't be modified.  It's like ... putting a bit of sticky plaster over the top of a cut, you know?  It sticks on pretty well but if you know it's there and you're determined enough, you can just rip it off.  And just because Malfoy's a complete arse of a person doesn't mean I underestimate him, Granger.  He's not much good if you catch him on the hop, but he's pretty sharp when he has a bit of time on his side.  And he's watching me."

"Another of your admirers, no doubt," she said dryly, but he could see her thinking about what he'd said. 

The fact that the description applied to her as much as to Malfoy was something Harry saw no reason to point out.  He didn't have time to get into an argument with her today and besides, it was enough that having pointed it out to her she would now have the recognition and understanding of Malfoy's behaviour.  Harry didn't have Ron's high opinion of Hermione's self-awareness, but he respected her intelligence.

"Come on," he said.  "Let's get on with it.  I've got a stack of stuff I want to do today."  He shot Ron a sly grin and the redhead's lips twitched in spite of his unusually grave expression.

"Got another riot to start, have you?" Hermione asked rather snippily.

Harry snorted.  "Why does everyone keep calling it a riot?"

"That probably has something to do with the fact that your entire _house_ was trying to kill each other, destroy every stick of furniture and loot each other's belongings, all at the same time," she retorted.  "I'm amazed you didn't start a fire to add the final touch!"

"All the stuff that was nicked has been given back," Harry said.  Which was true; when he'd looked inside the box in the common room that morning, it was full.  The thought of all those repentant thieves nearly tripping over each other in the night in their rush to escape suspension had amused him all through breakfast.

"What did Snape do?" Ron asked, interested.  "Threaten to make them boil newts for a month?"

"Snape didn't do anything.  I told them to give it all back and they did."

Silence.  The two Gryffindors boggled at him.

"And what did _you_ threaten them with?" Hermione asked finally.

"A bit of peace and quiet for the rest of us," Harry said, growing irritated with the endless questions.  "Look, can we just get on with this?  I've got a lesson with Flitwick later and I have to work on a project he gave me first."

Hermione looked dissatisfied, but she let it go for the time being and followed the other two to the classroom door. 

Harry peered around the edge for a moment or two.  The passage outside was empty and he definitely couldn't hear anything, but even if it _was_ pure paranoia he couldn't shake the feeling that there was someone else lurking a short way away.  Finally he pulled back from the door and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak again.

"Wait here a minute," he said softly, swinging it around his shoulders.

"What's up?  You reckon there's someone hanging around?" Ron asked warily.

"Maybe.  I'm going to set up a trip-charm, just in case.  I won't be a minute."

Hermione grabbed his arm just as he was about to pull the Cloak over his head.  "Be careful how strongly you set it!" she warned.

It was tempting to retort to this, except that Harry suddenly remembered the couple of inadvertently strong charms he'd cast recently and the havoc they'd caused.  It wouldn't do to trip someone so violently that they broke an ankle - or, worse, their neck.

He didn't see anyone as he crossed the passage invisibly and cast the trip-charms in several places, but the feeling that there was someone lurking out of sight was stronger than ever.  As Harry ducked back into the classroom where Ron and Hermione waited, he had a sudden idea.

"Can you cast a Disillusionment Charm?" he whispered to Hermione as he took the Cloak off.

"Yes.  Why?" she wanted to know.

"You cast one on me and I'll cast one on you.  It'll make it harder for someone who can't get a clear look at us to see us crossing the passage."  Harry handed Ron the Cloak.  "You put that on."

Ron stared.  "Why?"

"Because I can come up with an explanation for why I'm with the Head Girl if I have to, but I can't explain being with you," Harry told him.  "It's safer for both of us if no one sees you."

"But if anyone's there, they probably already saw me arrive with Hermione!"

"Yes, but they didn't see _me_ arrive.  With you wearing the Cloak and me wearing a Disillusionment Charm, all they'll be sure of is that two people are up here - maybe me and Granger or maybe you and Granger, but not me and you together."

Hermione shook her head, giving him a half smile.  "You're impossible, Potter!  It muddies the waters, that's all, Ron," she added to the redhead.  "Put the Cloak on."

Ron sighed and pulled it on.  It was barely long enough to hide all of him.  Harry turned to Hermione and tapped the top of her head with his wand; her figure blurred from the crown of her head downwards until she seemed to blend in weirdly with the walls, like a chameleon.  She returned the favour and he forced himself not to shiver as the weird cold feeling trickled over him.

Satisfied, Harry put a finger to his lips and gestured for them to follow him.

 

xXx

 

"Well, this is interesting!" Hermione said, when Harry led them into the little study at the top of the spiral stairs.

"I've been trying to work out what this is," Harry said, going straight to the writing desk/dumb waiter object against the wall.  "If this was just a study room, there are a score of others in more accessible parts of the castle.  Dumbledore always has more than one reason for doing things, so what do you think it is?"  He pulled both sets of doors open so that she could see properly.

Hermione, her eyes wide with fascination, pushed him gently aside so that she could examine the ledger properly.  "Well, this is obviously an index of books within the castle," she said after a moment.

"Looks a bit thin for it to be an index of all of them," Ron objected.

"It could have an expansion charm on it," Harry pointed out.  "Yeah, I guessed it must be a library index, but what has that got to do with everything else?"

"Well ...."  Hermione hesitated, then picked up one the of the small blank cards and the quill.  She quickly wrote the title and author of a book listed in the ledger onto it, including the location, then put the card inside the dumb waiter and closed the doors.  There was a quiet grinding noise, then silence.  She opened the doors again.

There was a fat book lying inside on one of the shelves.  When Hermione took it out, they could all see that it was the book she had written on the card.

"It's a retrieval system!" she announced, delighted.  "Now _that's_ really clever and useful."

"Are you saying that this thing can fetch any book in the castle?" Ron demanded.

"Not _any_ book, Ron.  But I'm sure it can fetch any book listed in the index."

"So possibly any book in the castle libraries," Harry said, his eyes bright.

Hermione shrugged and nodded, flipping through the ledger.  "It certainly looks that way.  Of course, it won't help you much if you don't already know which book you need, but this is still a useful thing.  If you wanted to study here and didn't want to have to sign out a big pile of books from the library and carry them up here, this would save a lot of time and effort.  Although I don't know what would happen if someone else wanted the book you were using.  I suppose some kind of record must be kept somewhere.  And it might not work if you asked for a book from the Restricted Section when you don't already have permission to go in there.  I don't know."

"And you just put them back in the cupboard when you've finished with them?"

Hermione put the book she had requested back inside the dumb waiter and closed the doors.  There was a grinding noise again and when she opened the doors the book was gone.

"Okay, that's probably a good idea," Harry conceded.

Hermione rolled her eyes.  "Don't strain yourself!"

Harry shrugged, catching Ron's amused grin.  "I haven't tried to use it for anything important yet, Granger!"

"I give up.  You're hopeless," she said.

"I'll let you know if it works," he offered.

"Oh, thanks!  You showed us this place, but you won't let us use it ourselves?"  Hermione shook her head in disbelief.  "You're a real prince among men, Harry!"

Ron began to laugh.  "He's winding you up, Hermione!"

Satisfied that he'd successfully got her goat, Harry allowed just a hint of a grin to show.  "I'm no prince," he said.  "I'm just a scabby little halfblood with ideas above my station - didn't you know?"

"It doesn't seem to be holding you back at all," she retorted.

"'The meek can inherit the earth, because the rest of us are heading for the stars'," Harry quoted solemnly, and she beamed at him suddenly.

"I like that saying too!"

"Try saying it to Malfoy sometime and see the look he gives you."  Harry put his bag on one of the study carrels and began to unpack his puppets and box of equipment.

"I shouldn't think it's a sentiment he understands," Hermione commented.  "His kind of purebloods are very keen on the idea of predestination, aren't they?  'A place for everyone and everyone in their place', that sort of thing."

"Something like that.  We're all supposed to accept our lot in life and not get ideas above our station.  Someone like me offends them horribly."  Harry laid out the pieces of the snake he was trying to construct, fussily putting the individual sections of the 'skeleton' in order of size.  "You know what really bugs me about that?" he said suddenly.

"You wouldn't mind so much if they did something useful with their power in the Wizengamot," Ron suggested and he shrugged wryly when Harry looked at him in surprise.  "It's what bugs all of us, mate.  The First Families worked pretty well when they were actually running the Wizengamot for everyone's good, but these days there are more Malfoy types than Pettifers and they're more interested in what being in power can do for them than anything else."

"Yeah, I suppose that's mostly it.  They don't object to me for any rational reason, they just object to me on _principle_ and it's a completely cracked principle.  Although I think it bothers me more that people like Sirius seem to think it'll make a big difference when I take my Wizengamot seat.  I don't know what he thinks I'll be able to do."

"It's the thin end of the wedge," Hermione said.  "You're a halfblood taking up a position that non-purebloods have never held before.  And you were partly raised by Muggles - your outlook on life is different, you'll bring new ideas to the Wizengamot."

"Dumbledore's brought a lot of new ideas," Harry pointed out.  "Look how far that's got _him_.  And Mr. Pettifer - _and_ my grandfather.  I'm one person."

"But you won't always be, will you?" Ron pointed out reasonably.  "If Sirius has a kid with Miss Pettifer, she's a halfblood so their kid'll be a halfblood too."

"Quarter-blood," Hermione corrected him.

"Same difference to someone like Malfoy," Ron said.  "Tainted blood is tainted blood to him - you have to be able to prove five _generations_ of unmixed wizard blood just to be counted an ordinary pureblood, and eight if you want to be considered for advancement to First Rank.  Miss Pettifer might have been acknowledged and all, but I'll bet no one really cared while it looked like she was just going to be another grandkid of Mr. Pettifer's."

"They probably thought she was the ideal person to look after him in his old age after his wife died," Harry remarked, and Hermione's nose wrinkled distastefully.

"Right," Ron agreed.  "But if she becomes the mother of the next heir of the House of Black, that's different."

"Especially when Malfoy's mother is pregnant with a pureblood rival," Harry added.

Hermione looked startled.  "She's pregnant?"

"I thought I told you about that," Ron replied.  "Snape popped up and told Sirius while we were checking out the library at the Manor the first time."

"Goodness.  I wonder what Malfoy thinks about that?"

Harry shrugged.  "Haven't heard him say anything about it, but if he's like his old man he'll probably think it's a good idea."

" _Politically_ I'm sure it is, but ... well, he's seventeen.  That's a huge age gap between siblings.  Don't you think it must feel strange?"

"I get on okay with Bill," Ron objected.

"There are seven of you, Ron," Hermione said a little impatiently. "And Malfoy's family are completely different - he's been an only child until now, getting all of his parents' attention.  I know how _I'd_ feel if my mum and dad suddenly told me they were having another baby after all this time."

"It might not make much difference to him, though," Harry said.  "He gets a pretty rough deal from his father - Lucius Malfoy comes down hard on him if he doesn't get the right marks or do other things his dad thinks should.  Draco got a detention in first year for something, I don't remember what, and he got this letter from Lucius - there wasn't much on it, just a line about him being disappointed, but the paper must have been hexed because it made Draco ill.  He was in bed all weekend with stomach cramps, sweats and dizziness."

"Nice!" Ron remarked, looking disturbed, but Hermione studied Harry thoughtfully.

"Do you sympathise with him about his parents?" she asked curiously.

Harry snorted.  "Nah!"

"Funny.  You sounded almost like you did for a moment."

Harry looked at her as though she was mad.  "Why would I do that?"

"Well ...you know what it's like to have family problems, don't you?"

"The Dursleys are a completely different thing," Harry said emphatically.  "Besides, maybe he does get crap at home, but he's not exactly rebelling against them, is he?  He just does what Lucius wants every time.  If he was trying to be a bit different then maybe I'd sympathise, but he doesn't think for himself - he just tries to copy his father."

"Not everyone is strong-minded like you," Hermione pointed out.  "Some people find it easier to keep trying for their parents' approval.  Perhaps he's doing that."

"He probably is," Harry replied indifferently, "but that doesn't mean I have to feel sorry for him about it.  He's made a choice to do things that way - like Dumbledore says, it's the difference between what's easy and what's right, isn't it?"

"Yes ... I suppose so," she sighed.  "I still think his nose will be put out of joint by a new baby in the family, though, and it's something to bear in mind, Harry, because you don't know how he'll react to being supplanted.  He doesn't even have the consolation of knowing that this baby is _just_ a younger brother or sister either - not if it's potentially an heir for Mr. Black.  That puts them on an almost equal status."

"There's nothing Harry can do except be careful," Ron put in, "and he's doing that already."

"I know, I'm just saying."  Hermione changed the subject.  "Harry, there's something I wanted to ask you - well, two things, really."

Harry eyed her warily.  "Yeah?"

"About the newspaper we were going to start last term - I'd like to try to start that up again.  What do you think?"

Harry shrugged, bemused.  "You've still got Remus's permission to use his press.  Go for it."

"But will you help?"

"Doubt it.  What with all the extra lessons and stuff, I don't reckon I'll have any time.  Besides, I've got enough on my plate dealing with Slytherin."

Hermione opened her mouth to protest, then seemed to change her mind.  "If it _does_ become possible for you to help, will you?"

"I don't make promises like that," Harry said flatly.

"I'm not asking you to promise you'll come and work the press for me, or anything like that," she said.  "I want to know if I can ask for your help if there's a problem.  Professor Lupin only showed the three of us how to work it."

Harry took his time thinking about it, making Ron grin inwardly, then shrugged and nodded.  "If you can ask me in a way that won't make a prat like Malfoy try to hex me for being a house traitor, it'll probably be all right."

"Good.  Thank you."  Hermione seemed to suppress her annoyance with him through sheer willpower.  "The other thing ...."

"Go on then."  Harry was focussing more on his puppets now.

"I'm running DA again this year.  I think it's important to keep it going, in light of the threat from Death Eaters and the inadequate way the Ministry is facing up to it."  She paused, but Harry seemed disinclined to comment.  "You have a lot to offer DA, if you'd consider joining us," Hermione continued.

"Yeah?"  Harry squinted at a section of the snake's spine and smoothed an edge of it with a small file.  "And what has your DA got to offer me, Granger?"

She looked rather taken aback.  "Er …."

Harry looked up, raising his brows.  "I turned up last term and got shit from people.  Why should I do that again?"

"Some of the people who disagreed with you being there have left school now," she said.

"Macmillan hasn't," Ron murmured.  "Or Smith."

Hermione shot him an annoyed look.  "If they still object – and they might not! – they can be reasoned with.  This is more important than some people's prejudices.  There are a lot of things Harry could teach us all, much more than just the Patronus Charm.  Harry isn't the only one who needs to arm himself, but we aren't going to get that kind of education in the classroom.  And he needs to practice too.  That's easier to do with other people."

"But they're going to ask where he learned it all," Ron pointed out, "and whatever you tell them, it might make them more suspicious of him."

" _Obviously_ he learned it from his godparents," Hermione said impatiently.  "An Auror and a former Defence professor!  That's not a lie."

"It's just a half-truth," Harry remarked, a little amused.  "Salazar Slytherin would be proud of you, Granger – oh wait, you're not a Slytherin, are you?"

"People don't have to know everything," she retorted crossly. 

"They'll still know too much," Harry said.  "Besides, the answer's the same – I don't have time.  I've got three, maybe four, sets of extra lessons going on in my spare time and I don't get a lot of advance warning when they'll be.  So the answer's no."

"But think of the favour I'd owe you," Hermione suggested artfully, after a moment of frustrated silence.

"Yeah.  And think of what I'd ask for in return," Harry replied, bored.

Ron had to bite on his knuckles to stifle a laugh at this.

"Fine," Hermione said, looking annoyed.  "Have it your way.  But really, Potter, I can't see what you think you gain by being so isolated – "

"It may have escaped your notice, Granger, but isolation is a fantasy for me these days!" Harry snapped, losing patience with her.  "I'm surrounded by people who never bloody well leave me alone – if it's not you nagging me to join your after-school club, it's Malfoy and his mates stalking me, Goldstein popping up to gripe at me, Zabini trying to be my press agent, Dumbledore suspecting me of having nefarious ideas, Snape and Flitwick _daring_ me to have nefarious ideas, Mr. Pettifer trying to teach me _not_ to have nefarious ideas, my godparents sending me diaries that track all my lessons, and members of the Order of the bloody Phoenix lurking around me whenever I'm off school grounds.  Even my family's house-elves have been in the kitchens here to make sure none of the elves is going to poison me at dinner!  The only person who doesn't get on my case all the time is Ron."

"You forgot about You-Know-Who stalking you," Ron pointed out, looking a little pink about the ears.

"I thought it went without saying that he's always trying to get inside my head," Harry replied grumpily.  "Probably the only reason he hasn't managed it lately is because the queue is too long."

"He hasn't got inside your head lately because you're using Occlumency properly," Hermione corrected him tartly.  "That's something a lot of other people could stand to learn, you know.  You're not the only one who should keep his thoughts inside his own skull."

"If Snape can't teach it effectively, what makes you think I could?  Besides, to teach that you need someone who can use Legilimancy at least a bit to test you.  I can't."

"I would think they'd teach you that as well," she said.  "It could be useful for you to know it, as well as being able to defend against it."

"Knowing all Malfoy's nasty little secrets _could_ come in handy," Harry agreed, looking very struck.

Hermione scowled.  "Not that you would _mis_ -use it, of course."

Harry gave her a wide-eyed look.  "But what's the point in knowing how to read someone's mind if you're not intending to use it against your enemies?"

"Potter - !"

"I'm not a Gryffindor, Granger," Harry said impatiently.  "When will you get that into your head?  Now if you don't mind, I've got a stack of work to do on this before my next lesson with Flitwick."  He dragged a chair out and sat down, and to all appearances became completely engrossed in his puppet.

"Fine!" Hermione said, exasperated.  "I'm not giving in, though, Potter.  You should share knowledge like yours – I know you may be the most important person in this battle against Voldemort, but other people are targets too and they have a right to know how to defend themselves!"

"Whatever.  But if you do anything to destroy my credibility with the other Slytherins, I'm warning you – you'll regret it."  Harry looked up for a moment and the look in his bright green eyes was very serious.  "I don't care if you're the Head Girl and Ron's best friend.  Don't you dare get in my way."

"I will if I think you're abusing them," she said, straightening up.

"Hermione!"  Ron looked indignant.

"Typical Gryffindor," Harry said, unrolling thin wire from a spool and clipping a length off it.  "Judgemental as always."

"I'm just warning you," Hermione said.  "I'm not saying I don't trust you, Potter, but sometimes I think you need reminding of things."

"Because it's your place to remind me to be a good boy, right?"

"I give up," she said, shaking her head and picking up her bag.  "You seem determined to be difficult and confrontational today, and I have better things to do with my time."

"I thought you'd never come to that conclusion," Harry replied, threading two vertebra together and gently drawing the wire taut.  "Bye bye!"

"Are you coming, Ron?" Hermione asked him, annoyed.

"In a while," he said.  "I need to have a chat with Harry, okay?"

She made an impatient sound in her throat and headed for the door.

"Remember to take a different route out of here than the way you arrived," Harry said.  "And be careful – you never know who's lurking on the stairs."

Hermione flung a teach-your-grandmother look at him over her shoulder (wasted, as he wasn't looking) and disappeared, closing the door very quietly behind her.

"Do you have to wind her up like that?" Ron asked quietly in the silence that followed.

"She asks for it," Harry said flatly.  "And don't tell me she doesn't – you know it's true."

"She's trying to help," Ron said.

"Trying to help _who?_ " Harry demanded.  "Not me, that's for sure – I'm just useful to her!"

"That's not true, Harry – she came up here and showed you what that book retrieval thing was, didn't she?"

"Only because it might be useful to her too."

"Not true," Ron repeated.  "She didn't know what it was until she saw it.  And she probably does think she's helping you when she asks you to come to DA meetings.  She thinks you need friends."

"I _have_ friends," Harry said irritably.  "I have you, don't I?"

"I'm just one person," Ron said tiredly.  "Look, I don't want to argue with you.  I don't see you enough for that."

"You said you wanted to talk to me," Harry reminded him, fiddling with one of the little wooden snake 'vertebrae' in a nervous gesture that said more about his emotional state than his face ever did.

"Yeah, but like I said - I don't want to argue with you," Ron said.  "I just ...."

"What?"

Ron shrugged.  "I'm just a bit worried about you, okay?  I heard about what happened in your common room the other evening.  Hermione says you and Malfoy started it and Snape had to use some charm or other to stop it."

"The Lockdown Charm," Harry said.  "That's pretty cool, you know.  I didn't even know it existed, did you?  Could be useful to find out how it works."

"And do what?" Ron asked, bemused.

"Well, you never know."  Harry sighed and put the bit of wood down.  "I don't really need to do this right now.  Flitwick's given me a couple of books to read through - I just said I needed to do this to get rid of Granger."

"I got that impression," Ron said dryly, folding his arms.

"Yeah, well - it's good to know what that thing is - " Harry waved a hand at the retrieval unit, "but three's a crowd, you know, and she never knows when to get lost."

"Why, did you have something in mind?"

Harry looked at him and grinned.  "That DA of hers isn't meeting today, is it?"

 

xXx

 

"I'm pretty sure this isn't what the Founders intended when they built this room into the castle," Ron commented, amazed and incredulous.  "Just one problem - what happens if someone comes along and tries to get in here?"

"It hides the door once you're inside," Harry explained.  "And if someone tries to get a different version of the room to appear, it just won't.  I found that out by accident - Trelawney's a secret drinker and she keeps her stash of booze in here."

"You're kidding me!"  Ron groaned a little.  "I wish we'd known that in fifth year.  Umbridge would never have found DA if we'd just stayed put!"

"Maybe.  Wasn't there someone who told on you?  If she knew how to get in, Umbridge would have found you anyway.  The cow."

"So they have to know _exactly_ what version of the room is here, or the door won't open?"

"Yeah.  I only found that out because I spent ages trying to get in once and I was here when Trelawney came out - I could see what was behind the door."

"Well, I'd be gobsmacked if anyone else imagined _this,_ " Ron said rather emphatically.

"Yeah.  This wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but …."  Harry blew his hair out of his eyes and laughed a little.

Apparently the magic of Hogwarts moved in mysterious ways, because the Room of Requirement had decided to interpret Harry's request for a smaller replica of the Prefects' Bathroom as … the cabin of a seventeenth century galleon.  At least, Harry assumed that was what it was meant to be.  It was definitely the cabin of a ship – the floor was moving slightly - and it was definitely antique.  There was a wide bunk against one wooden wall (hull?), a swinging brass oil lantern was throwing soft yellow light and odd shadows, there was a brass porthole through which only darkness could be seen, and the sound of sails creaking and waves slapping against the hull could distantly be heard.  The air even smelled salty.

"I dunno if I want to know what was on your mind to produce this," Ron said, but there was a laugh in his voice and Harry's heart lightened when he saw his friend's mischievous expression.  He'd been a little worried by Ron's reaction to the whole riot business, not to mention the unexpected and worrying remark _I'm just one person,_ but it seemed he was over that.  At least, Harry hoped he was because they couldn't afford to be in here for more than an hour or so.  Much as he might regret it, the rest of his day was full and he didn't want to waste any time on arguments.

"So …." Ron continued.  He walked over to the bunk – slowly and cautiously, as the floor/deck kept lifting beneath his feet – and studied it.  It was made of a dark red wood and bolted to the deck, and had unusually deep sides, like a box, presumably to stop the occupant – or occupants – rolling out during rough weather.  It was piled deep with fancy pillows, fine linen sheets and oriental-looking woven blankets, and when he lifted these curiously it was to discover a real feather bed underneath.  He looked up at Harry and grinned.  "I'm not saying a hammock wouldn't have been fun, but I reckon this is more comfortable!  What kind of sailor has a bed like this, though?"

"A pirate?" Harry suggested, with a grin.

Ron sniggered.  "I've got to know – what _were_ you thinking of if it wasn't this, mate?"

"The prefects' bathroom," Harry admitted.

"You must have really liked it when we screwed in the bath that time." Ron commented, amused.

"Didn't you, then?"  Harry sat down cautiously on the edge of the bunk, and almost immediately found himself tipping back into the embrace of the lace-edged pillows.  The ship seemed to have chosen that moment to list and the feather bed was softer and deeper than he'd realised.

"Harry," Ron said in a very patient voice, "I reckon I'd like it if we screwed in my dad's manky old tool shed at the bottom of our garden, and that place is full of spiders."

"And you call _me_ a kinky sod."  There was no way he was going to be able to get himself upright again unless the ship rolled the other way.

"Well, aren't you?"

There was possibly an argument to be made on this point, but Harry wasn't about to make it.  Ron was still standing there, feet braced against the gentle movement of the ship, his arms crossed and grinning slightly.  The lamplight was very kind to him, turning his hair into a deep, coppery gold halo and the shadows falling across his face made him look a little older, more mature.  It didn't hurt that the way he was standing made his worn old jersey ride up a little and pulled his jeans taut across his hips and thighs.

Very nice indeed.  Only Harry could think of a dozen other ways in which Ron could look even nicer still in these surroundings, and most of them involved less clothes.  In particular he wanted Ron to lose the shirt and at least unbutton the jeans a bit; he didn't have much hair on his chest yet, but he had an interesting line of dark auburn hair leading from his bellybutton to his cock that Harry was very fond of.

He wondered if he could encourage his friend to get going and deliberately relaxed back into the softness of the bedding.  It was sinfully comfortable; starting to enjoy himself, Harry ran a languid hand over his chest and belly, before sliding it between his legs to cup his groin.

"Hm," Ron said in an amused tone, but – maybe it was a trick of the light – his face and throat seemed to have reddened a little, and when Harry's eyes dropped he could see that there was a suspicious bulge in his jeans that hadn't been there before.  "Planning to wank in front of me?" Ron asked, unusually forthright.

"If that's what you want," Harry replied, although privately he wasn't too sure if he was ready for the implied voyeurism of such an act.  Gamely he squeezed himself a little and gave a little upward thrust of his hips.  "Though I'm more of a team player than a soloist, if you get my drift."

"Oh yeah," Ron said, and there was a definite throaty note to his voice now.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"What would you like?"

Mutual voyeurism was more interesting.  "You could take your shirt off."

Ron licked his lips – making Harry's cock throb unexpectedly in the close confinement of his jeans – and grabbed the hem of his jersey, pulling it roughly up over his head.  He dragged it off his arms and tossed it on the floor. 

"Nice," Harry approved.  Ron was pale-skinned, with freckles leading down his throat and sprinkled over his shoulders; playing the Keeper position had given him a certain amount of muscle definition in his stomach, arms and chest, although he was as yet slender and not fully grown into the promise of his bones.  Harry noted with pleasure the flat, dark pink nipples, the darker dimple of his bellybutton and the beginnings of that intriguing line of red hair below it.

"You take yours off too," Ron said, shifting under Harry's hot eyes.

That took a bit of manoeuvring in the softness of the bed.  Harry was grateful that playing Quidditch used a lot of hidden muscles, especially in the stomach.  He managed to pull himself into a sitting position long enough to reach back over his head, grab a handful of his sweatshirt and yank it off, acutely aware that Ron was watching him avidly even as he toed his trainers and socks off.

"Jeans," Harry said, freeing himself from the tangle of his shirt and throwing it aside.  "Undo them."

Ron hesitated then unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his fly and let his jeans drop to the floor, stepping out of them.  Underneath he wore unexciting maroon cotton boxers, but Harry was more interested in the eager cock that was poking out of them.  Ron was – well, he wasn't huge but he was still a decent handful.  Losing patience with the tease (being seventeen was annoying in that respect), Harry fell back against the pillows and struggled to unzip his own jeans, mumbling in frustration when he got them undone only to struggle even more to remove them.  Losing some of his nerves, Ron chuckled and grabbed Harry's feet one after the other, pulling off his shoes and socks and dropping them on the floor.  With a supreme effort, Harry got his jeans down over his hips and Ron pulled them off for him. 

Then Ron was almost falling into the bunk and climbing up Harry's eager body.  Harry grabbed him around the neck and pulled him close, their mouths meeting in a wet, bruising kiss.  This wasn't nearly enough; they writhed against each other as the ship rolled gently beneath them, fighting to drag each other's boxers out of the way.  Cloth tore, and Harry condemned it with a stray thought, then his hand closed on the hot, silky length of Ron's cock and suddenly he was completely calm and focussed within himself.  He began to pull on it with firm, steady strokes, the way he liked it himself, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the damp head gently, and Ron made a deep groaning sound into Harry's mouth.

Abruptly the ship tilted again and Harry found himself rolling gently over Ron … and Ron took advantage of the movement to dislodge Harry's hand and instead slip his own between them.  He reached, grabbing Harry's thigh underneath, and Harry suddenly found himself with his right leg hooked over Ron's left hip with their cocks trapped snugly between them.  Ron gave him a positively indecent swollen-mouthed grin and began a gentle rocking motion that set up a lovely, hot sliding of cock against cock.  Harry grunted, surprised, and decided to kiss that smile off his friend's face.

It was both hot and surreal; the movement of the ship beneath them forming weird counterpoints to their own urgent rocking, and the slap of waves against the hull mingling with the sounds of damp flesh working together.  And then, almost without warning, there was the burst of incandescent heat, and it was over too soon.  It was always over too soon, leaving Harry to try to draw breath back into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe and ease himself off his friend.  Panting, they both subsided into the depths of the feather bed.

Staring up at the dark wooden beams above him, Harry wondered if the Room's choice of décor had in fact been a quirk of its mechanism, or if it was really just a manifestation of his own hidden desire to sail away with Ron and leave his troubled life behind.

 

xXx

 

In spite of everything Harry still managed a couple of hours in the hidden room, working on his puppets and reading through a number of his texts.  His 'official' textbooks he found it easier to read in bed at night, but there were the books Professor Flitwick had given him to study, Dumbledore's book on Legilimancy, and the several notebooks of Gaius Black which lived on the shelves in this room, plus others he'd brought with him from Black Manor, all of which it was better that other people didn't see.

Harry was starting to give more thought to how he might use the room.  Without a doubt it was a good place to study within the castle, but the fact that it was off the beaten track and warded might not be enough.  On the way back to the room at lunchtime he found that two of the many trip-spells he'd set earlier had been triggered and one had been inexpertly tampered with.  The ones nearer to the room were undisturbed, as were Dumbledore's wards on the door, but suspected they would only remain that way for short while longer.

So Harry spent some of his study time poring over the Marauder's Map and scouting out all of the routes to and from the room.  Three particularly interested him – the first was a hidden set of stairs that led by an indirect route to the kitchens, and the second was a staircase that went up to a small landing pad on the roof.  The third _appeared_ to take a winding course all the way around the castle until it emerged in a small passage behind the Headmaster's suite, but when Harry touched the map lightly with a fingertip the pathway changed and cut directly across the map in a way that had to be physically impossible – not least because it went through open air between several towers.

Harry knew enough about Hogwarts by now to know that the impossible was entirely possible.  If the castle could produce rooms that changed their configuration according to a person's needs, or rooms that could admit a person in one place and permit them to exit somewhere else entirely, and staircases that moved around entirely at a whim, then a corridor that could offer a direct route from one side of the building to the other, entirely disregarding the laws of physics, should present no great challenge.  The challenge was for the user, who had to find the corridor in the first place.

Knowing these extra routes to the room was solid information that would help ensure he didn't accidentally reveal his secret to casual (or not-so-casual) observers.  The next problem was ensuring that they didn't find the room on their own – or, if they did find it, that they couldn't gain access to it.  And, since Harry had had Worst Case Scenarios dinned into his head repeatedly over the summer by Kingsley Shacklebolt, how to safeguard anything inside the room if they _did_ gain access.  This was the stickier problem.

He'd already placed disguising illusions over the bookshelves and the retrieval system, but illusions only worked so far and he had no idea how good some of his primary enemies were at detecting them.  Extra wards wouldn't be enough either.  Harry had been serious when he told Hermione he didn't trust Malfoy if he was left alone to deal with a problem for long.  He had learned a certain realism over the years, the knowledge that most annoying or uncomfortable facts had to be faced up to if he wanted to keep his skin whole. 

You cooked meals and washed up as told by your aunt, if you wanted to avoid being thrashed with a belt by your uncle and locked under the stairs without anything to drink for twenty-four hours.  You also accepted that sometimes you would be thrashed and locked away anyway.

You accepted that if you wanted to go largely un-harassed at primary school, it was simpler not to attempt to make friends with other kids.  You would still be harassed, of course, but at least it was just by your cousin and his gang, and not by the angry friends of the kid you had tried to befriend when said kid got beaten up for speaking to you.

You accepted that you had somehow, without intending to, been Sorted into the wrong house at secondary school and that from that simple mistake your life would be made immeasurably harder by a bunch of people who in many respects weren't all that different from your aunt, uncle and cousin – no matter what they might think to the contrary.  You accepted this because, at the end of the day, it was still better to be here than back at "home".  Wherever "home" might be.

And for sheer safety's sake you accepted that some of the people you most despised still managed to be as smart and devious and intelligent in their own short-sighted ways as you were, and that if you didn't keep a sharp eye on them all the time they could manage to outmanoeuvre you.

Because the key to survival, always, was not to allow them to outmanoeuvre you.

As a general principle, asking for help was a short route to your enemies outmanoeuvring you.  It meant that another person was aware of what you were doing and generally speaking that was one extra person too many.  On the other hand, sometimes you _had_ to ask for help.  Harry had accepted that fact very reluctantly when he was thirteen and being preyed upon by the Dementors guarding the school.  Asking Professor Lupin for help had been an act of sheer desperation.

These days, however … asking for help sometimes seemed like a smart move.  Harry wondered when that had happened to him and how bad a thing it might prove to be in the long-run.  On the other hand, he didn't think there was any other way of finding the information he needed - and his godparents probably knew the castle better than anyone else alive.  So he reluctantly took a moment to scribble out an owl to Sirius.  He could test one of the hidden passages on his way out and take an oblique route to the owlery.

Harry returned to his dormitory after his lesson with Professor Flitwick to put his books away.  He found Blaise there, gathering up books and parchment.

"There you are," he remarked casually as Harry walked.  "I'm going to do my homework in the library.  Want to come?"

Harry hesitated, looking around, then he shut the door and cast a silencing spell.  "I can't," he said frankly.  Now was the time to test Blaise's loyalty, if ever.  "You wanted to know where I go in the evenings, right?"

Blaise eyed him warily.  "Yes?"

"I have extra lessons with Dumbledore."  Harry dragged his trunk out from under his bed, checked the locks for tampering, and opened it.  He carefully tucked his Animation books away, aware of the other boy's thoughtful silence.

"What sort of lessons?" Blaise asked finally.  "Or would you prefer not to say?"

Harry _would_ have preferred not to say, but he'd come to the conclusion that it was better this way.  Besides, worded correctly the only information that could get back to Malfoy would be essentially useless information - however accurate it might be.  Harry locked his trunk again and shoved it back beneath his bed, and stood up.

"I've been having trouble with my magic - controlling it," he explained, and as he'd hoped Blaise's face lightened with sudden comprehension.

"The hex that rebounded?"

"Partly.  Some things have been happening that I need to get under control.  That Jaw-Locker Hex I used on Malfoy - it got away from me and Pomfrey couldn't remove it."  Harry shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage.  "Dumbledore wants me to work on controlling it, because it could be a bit embarrassing if I stun someone and they can't be woken up, you know?  But for obvious reasons he doesn't want everyone to know, so he's been tutoring me himself."

Blaise nodded slowly, and a sudden and unexpected grin tugged at his mouth.  "Pity you didn't leave that curse on Malfoy!"

"I was _really_ tempted," Harry admitted, grinning a little too.  "Still, there'll be other opportunities."

"With any luck."  Blaise shouldered his bag.  "Okay, I'll see you later then."

When he was gone, Harry reluctantly picked up his organiser and looked at the entry that had appeared while he was reading in the hidden room.  Usually there was some indication of what Dumbledore had planned for him, but this evening it was just a summons and for all his outward bravado Harry had to admit to an inner qualm, for he didn't much like it when Dumbledore unexpectedly turned grim with him.    He had never made the mistake of taking Dumbledore's outward projection of harmless barminess seriously, but it was one thing to know intellectually that the Headmaster was a frighteningly powerful wizard underneath the gentle exterior, and another matter entirely to actually _see_ the real person.Especially when that person was displeased with him.




It popped into Harry's mind that it was not unlike looking at Remus and seeing his very angry werewolf self staring back out of normally gentle eyes just before the full moon.  It always came as an unpleasant shock, and the oddest thing was that in some ways he found this unexpected duality of nature even more alarming than facing up to Voldemort.  After all, there was nothing of the dual personality about Voldemort - he was exactly what he was, from the surface through to the core of him.  Most people were. 

Remus, of course, _was_ a werewolf.  It wasn't as though there was anything especially machiavellian about the two sides of his nature; he hadn't chosen to be the way he was.  Dumbledore on the other hand ....

Harry sighed and closed the organiser.  He put it into his book bag and packed both the Legilimancy text and his Code Of Duelling alongside it.  It was entirely possible - probable even - that he was going to get a roasting of the kind that only Dumbledore could dish out, but it was always as well to be prepared, because really one never knew exactly _what_ Dumbledore was going to do - or even what he considered to be a punishment.

But when he arrived in Dumbledore's office, it was to find the Headmaster drinking tea with Petuarius Pettifer and his granddaughter Primrose.

Harry experienced a familiar lurch of irritation at the sight of Miss Pettifer, but firmly squashed it for once.  He was in enough trouble already, without upsetting his elderly mentor by being uncivil.  He did wonder, though, if Sirius had signed the contract with Miss Pettifer for her to bear him a son.  Perhaps he hadn't.  It had only been a few weeks after all - nothing would happen yet, Harry was sure.

"Good evening, Harry," the Headmaster said with his usual welcoming smile. 

Mr. Pettifer stood up to clasp Harry's hands in greeting.  "You remember my granddaughter Primrose, Henry ...."

"Of course," Harry said politely, and he did his impersonation of a nice, well-brought-up son of the First Families by bowing over her hand and lying about what a pleasure it was to see her again. 

Judging by the look in her eyes Primrose Pettifer wasn't at all fooled, but she did an equally expert impression of a nice, well-brought-up daughter of the First Families and smiled graciously.  Like Harry she was a half-blood, but more than that he didn't really know about her, other than that her father - Mr. Pettifer's eldest son and heir - hadn't wanted her to be acknowledged as a member of the family and that he could make her life more than a little difficult when he eventually became her _paterfamilias_.  Under any other circumstances Harry might have felt sympathetic towards her for he knew only too well what it was like to be despised by one's nearest relatives.  Unfortunately, Miss Pettifer's plan of escape involved muscling into Harry's adopted family and that set his ever-ready hackles bristling at her.

"Primrose has offered to assist with our duelling lesson this evening," Mr. Pettifer explained, taking his seat again and smiling paternally at the two of them.

She had?  Excellent.  He could singe her a bit and no one would care.

"That's very kind," Harry murmured. 

"I taught her myself," Mr. Pettifer continued, beaming at her proudly, "and I flatter myself that she's as fine a duellist as one may meet anywhere."

Miss Pettifer looked demure, and Harry eyed her more warily.  Tempting as it was to assume that Mr. Pettifer was an indulgent grandparent who grossly overestimated his favourite's talents, Harry resisted the impulse.  He'd duelled against Mr. Pettifer too often not to know that the old man was as sharp and lethal as many a wizard fifty years his junior and it was a point of fierce pride with him to pass on his skills to the very best of his ability.  If Mr. Pettifer said that Primrose was a sharp duellist, then it behoved Harry to be careful.

She had no reason to be nice to him either, after all.

"Before you commence with the lesson," Dumbledore said, getting up, "I shall take the opportunity to find the documents that I promised you, Petuarius, and put them into the safe hands of Miss Pettifer.  I know you and Harry will excuse us."

"Of course," Mr. Pettifer said and Harry stood up, politely bowing to Miss Pettifer as she followed Dumbledore from the room.

Harry was anything but stupid.  Dumbledore's statement might have held all its usual artlessness, but it still left no doubt that handing over a bunch of papers to Miss Pettifer was just an excuse to leave Harry and Mr. Pettifer alone together and that made him suspicious.

Mr. Pettifer was leaning on his hound's-head stick and regarding Harry with intelligent, curious blue eyes.

"Well, Henry," he said mildly.  "You seem to be having an exciting term so far."

"Sir?" Harry replied warily.

"Madness and mayhem and riots in the dormitories, by all accounts," Pettifer elaborated.  "There also seems to have been an element of criminal damage, which is rather unfortunate ….  You are aware that I am school governor, I suppose?"

Harry actually wasn't, but it made perfect sense to him.  "Everything that was stolen has been returned, Sir," he said after a moment.

"So Dumbledore has told me," Pettifer replied, nodding.  "I suppose the return of stolen property to its rightful owners is a good thing, but I am sure you appreciate that it would have been better had it never been stolen."

Harry's hackles began to rise just a little.  "That wasn't my fault, Sir – "

"Was it not?  You chose to involve yourself in a quarrel with young Malfoy which you are intelligent enough to know could not possibly have remained between the two of you alone.  Presumably you are equally capable of deducing certain outcomes of your actions."

"Sir – "

"I am not your guardian," Pettifer interrupted him, cool and very calm.  "Nor is Black, any longer.  You are your own man, subject only to your own conscience and the laws that we must all obey.  Nevertheless, Henry, you have done me the great honour of permitting me to guide you in some measure and I would be failing in my duty to you, and to those of your family who placed their trust in me, if I did not presume upon our relationship and warn you that some of your actions are … less than what I would expect from a young man in your position, and less than what I have come to expect from you."

Harry shifted from one foot to the other.  He wasn't sure what Pettifer expected him to say.  He wasn't about to apologise, if that was it.

"And I feel that as a friend I perhaps have the right to point you in the right direction when you seem to have lost your way.  Would that be so?"

Harry couldn't help giving him a doubtful look.  "What direction is that, Sir?"

"The abuse of power is a terrible temptation for a wizard of rank," Pettifer said, watching his face.  "I feel sure you must already know this better than most."

"Sir?"

"You are a wizard of unusual strength, Henry.  It is not unknown to those of us who have your well-being and interests at heart that your strength sometimes produces quite prodigious and unexpected results – such as the inadvertent locking of a classmate's jaw beyond Madam Pomfrey's ability to reverse it."

Harry couldn't stop a tiny snort of derision at this.  "Malfoy," he said, finally understanding – at least partially – where Mr. Pettifer was going.  Of course that was what this was all about; Dumbledore didn't forget such things.

"Indeed.  Young Mr. Malfoy," Pettifer agreed.  "One cannot help but observe the justice in one of his bloodline finally being cheated of the sound of his own voice, it must be said.  Unfortunately, one is generally obliged to restrain one's self in the name of one's own good name."

"Hm," Harry said, unconvinced.

"And also out of the necessity of concealing one's prodigious abilities, lest one's peers become anxious in one's company," Pettifer added gently, "and one's enemies become suspicious, although I feel sure you must be tired of the latter argument."

"I don't care what anyone says," Harry said, losing patience with the roundabout nature of this conversation.  "Malfoy needs to be slapped down sometimes."

"Indeed."  Pettifer seemed to consider this.  "And you believe you are the person to do so?"

"Nobody else is volunteering."

"Possibly a challengeable statement.  What do you think of him, Henry?"

"Malfoy?  He's an idiot."

" _Is_ he?" Pettifer asked, looking faintly surprised.

"You have to know him," Harry explained.  He wondered why he suddenly felt as though he was on slippery ground.

"You forget – I _do_ know him.  As I know his father, and once knew his grandfather and great-grandfather," was the gentle reply.

Harry stood his ground.  "Doesn't make him any less an idiot, Sir."

"He is the son and heir of a First Family, Henry, and his academic achievements rival your own, at least on paper.  By all means hold him in contempt if you must, but you must learn to make your arguments more defensible than a weak attack upon his intelligence if you wish them to be taken seriously."

"He thinks supporting Voldemort and becoming a Death Eater are really good ideas," Harry said flatly.  "Actually, he thinks it'd be fun to kill people.  He makes death threats quite a lot."

"Regrettable opinions, I agree, but do you think he is unique in that?  He hears these things from his father whenever he sees him, I am sure," Pettifer said.  "Lucius is perhaps more circumspect among his peers, but the truth is there for anyone with the ears and will to hear it."

"He knows things he probably shouldn't," Harry said, suddenly remembering something.  "And he brags about them, because he can never keep his mouth shut.  I think … I think his father, or somebody his father knows, is poisoning Mr. Zabini."

Mr. Pettifer's head came up and his eyes fixed on Harry sharply.  "I beg your pardon?"

"Antonio Zabini," Harry said.  "He was a friend of my grandfather, wasn't he?  Blaise is his grandson.  When we first got here in September Malfoy made a smart remark to Blaise about his grandfather's health, like he knew something about it that Blaise didn't."

"Antonio has been in poor health for some time now," Pettifer said.  "And yes, he was a close associate of your grandfather.  They worked together for many years in the diplomatic corps.  He is a man of great personal principles, many of which I have no doubt affront Lucius Malfoy greatly, but to suggest that he is poisoning Antonio - !"

"Doesn't have to be him," Harry observed.  "I don't reckon he'd get his hands dirty himself."

Mr. Pettifer closed his eyes for a moment.  "The notion seems not to disturb you, Henry."

Harry considered this.  "Well, Sir, people have been trying to kill _me_ for a long time.  I suppose it doesn't really surprise me anymore."

This seemed to stump Pettifer momentarily.  Finally he heaved a sigh and shook his head slightly.  "That … must be a topic for another day, I think.  For the sake of brevity alone, Henry, I shall be blunt.  It is beneath your dignity to indulge in the type of ill-bred thuggery that the Malfoys seem to dabble in.  They are parvenus.  They may have money but their breeding and history is less than your own, for you are a Potter.  Do not, I beg you, lower yourself to young Malfoy's level.  Abstain from violence, mayhem and … skulduggery."

Skulduggery?  Harry was caught by the word, charmed by the dignified way Pettifer pronounced it.  'Violence, mayhem and skulduggery' almost made it sound exciting, instead of the grubby house politics it really was. 

He was less taken with the idea of being 'better' than Draco Malfoy.  Harry had a perverse streak to his nature and sometimes he delighted in living up to people's prejudices against him.  In the same way that it had disappointed him to wear formal clothes to his seventeenth birthday celebrations and discover that they made him look like every other member of the First Families, it didn't especially please him to discover that there were people – or one person at least – who thought that Malfoy was beneath _him_ , rather than the other way around.  That wasn't the way the game was played.  Harry was The Outsider, the halfblooded Trojan horse in the midst of the purebloods' ranks.  It was Harry's opinion that rather than lowering himself to Malfoy's level, he was tunnelling up from underneath him when he would least expect it.

Although there _was_ entertainment value in the image of the Malfoys as dodgy nouveaux riche types pretending to be something they weren't.  The resemblance between them and the Dursleys was beautifully unflattering.

The trouble with renouncing mayhem, violence and all those other exciting words was that even without them wars between social classes had a habit of being accompanied by a faint but unmistakable whiff of revolution and mob rule.  Harry couldn't help thinking that this was what really motivated Mr. Pettifer's rebuke – for it was undoubtedly a rebuke, however gentle – rather than any real concern for Harry's reputation as a Potter.  The wizarding world was long overdue for a revolution and such things were notorious for being precipitated by hot-headed students.  Today it was a riot in Slytherin, but who knew what might happen if the agitation spread outwards through the school?  Slytherin was the most political of the houses, after all. 

Harry's grandfather had been a revolutionary by all accounts.  So was Pettifer himself.  But their ideas of revolution centred around dignified debate in the Wizengamot, backed up by intense but genteel discussion between likeminded friends and associates; "tea-room politics" as Remus called it.  Not violence, espionage and public disorder.  Of all things they abhorred violent dissent and this was the attitude that had made it so difficult to get a grip on the Voldemort problem for so long.  Voldemort did not disdain such methods.

Harry wondered if he could survive if he ignored these things himself.  And he wondered what Pettifer thought they were teaching him all sorts of violent and potentially subversive things for.

Fortunately he was spared having to answer Pettifer by a quiet cough that announced Dumbledore's return.

"Miss Pettifer is making her way down to the Lesser Great Hall, Harry," he said mildly, when Harry looked around.  "Will you follow her?  I must speak to Petuarius privately for a moment."

That didn't sound too good.  Harry gave each of them a doubtful look, but reluctantly did as the Headmaster bade him.

 

xXx

 

As duelling lessons went, Harry was inclined to count this one as somewhat more educational than the general run of them. 

Primrose Pettifer's skill lay largely in her textbook accuracy and remarkable speed, coupled with a rare (for wizards) left wand-hand which meant that all her spells were fired at an odd angle for an opponent to counter.  It quickly became clear to Harry, however, that she wasn't there just for his benefit.  If she had a major flaw it was that she had been trained solely to fight under the strict rules of the formal duel.  She was fast, she was strong, she was certainly graceful – but she wasn't particularly innovative and this was a major disadvantage in facing an opponent who had few scruples to speak of and didn't much care about the rules.

After every engagement she would stop and lower her wand, waiting for her grandfather, who was acting as referee as usual, to step in and declare the winner of the bout.  Harry twice caught her out that way, making her cry foul; the third time she lost her temper and refused to re-engage.

"Grandpapa, he cheats," she protested angrily.  "How am I to duel with someone who doesn't care about the rules?  He shows no respect for his opponent or the referee - "

"There will be no referee when he duels with Lord Voldemort," Pettifer replied mildly, "and no Death Eater will show Henry respect." 

His words seem to take her aback.  Harry politely studied the walls, but he couldn't help wondering what rock Primrose had been living under if the fact that Voldemort and his followers wanted to kill him was news to her.

"I am sure one doesn't _duel_ with such creatures," she muttered.  "I can't imagine that they would care a snap of their fingers for the rules."

"Indeed.  Therefore Henry must learn to duel in an altogether more savage manner, whilst preserving a very thin veneer of the civilities in order to satisfy those few of Voldemort's sycophants who still care for the appearance of things."

There was a pause.  Harry risked a tiny glance at Primrose; her expression was a mystery to him, but the stiff way she held herself, with her wand tucked under one arm as she pulled her tight-fitting duelling gloves off (gloves for duelling in! how quaint!), spoke volumes.

"In that case, I really don't think I am the most appropriate duelling partner for him," she said in a rather controlled tone.  "An Auror, perhaps – "

"My dear, we discussed this did we not?"  Pettifer's tone was kindly, but with an unusually steely note in it.  "There are considerable difficulties in arranging for an Auror to assist us in this task – indeed, for many individuals.  And whilst Henry is making some progress by competing with his friends, they are as inexperienced as he; he _must_ have experienced opponents to hone his skills against.  Besides, the benefits of this exercise do not all fall upon Henry's side."

"Grandpapa – "

"Primrose, my dear, in these dangerous times I am not a man to be related to if one wishes for a quiet life," Pettifer interrupted her.  "I am confronted at every session of the Wizengamot – "

Harry hadn't known that; that was an interesting snippet of information.

" – And it can only be a matter of time before more than mere words are used against me.  We are not dealing with civilised people.  One must defend one's self, and one must be prepared to do so in a manner which is as expedient as it is distasteful.  Do you imagine Henry here relishes using unethical curses?"

Primrose glanced at Harry, and her expression could have taken up an entire page of an encyclopaedia on its own. 

"One wonders," she remarked dryly.

Harry gave her a sunny smile, the one he reserved for people like Pansy Parkinson when he wanted to make them nervous.  Primrose didn't seem to be impressed by it.

"I see no occasion for rudeness," Pettifer told his granddaughter sternly, which surprised Harry a little for he didn't consider Primrose's comment to be rude.  Of course, his standards were a little rougher than Pettifer's.

Primrose promptly apologised, but Harry wasn't fooled.  Actually, he liked her a little better for the sparky look she shot him even as she mouthed the words.  He much preferred it when people showed their animosity openly; he knew how to deal with decent resentment.  Besides, the look suggested that she was going to try to give him a rough time from now on, and that was much better as it meant that he didn't have to hold back at all.  They could be as nasty to each other as they liked.

So he accepted her apology with a sweetness that would have set anyone who knew him on the alert, and watched as she pulled her gloves back on.  By happy coincidence, Emmeline Vance had taught him a nice little charm over the summer that was _primarily_ designed for warming one's hands during the winter.  If he could overload the spell, he thought he might be able to teach Primrose a lesson about wearing gloves to fight in.

 

xXx

 

"Should I ask how you managed to singe your shirt sleeves last night?" Blaise asked Harry at breakfast the following morning.

"Probably better not," Harry said.

As was usual for a Sunday morning, only he and Blaise and a small handful of the more energetic first and second years were at the Slytherin table as breakfast was served.  It was much the same story at the other house tables, as the majority of pupils preferred a lie-in.  Harry tended to see their loss as his gain; peace and quiet _and_ hot, fresh kippers with bread still warm from the ovens.  Late risers only got toast, cereal and bacon if they were lucky.

"I never imagined the Headmaster being a rough customer," Blaise remarked dryly.  "Odd, perhaps, but not violent."  Not sharing Harry's fondness for kippers, he was eating kedgeree with a plate of buttered toast on one side.  Kedgeree was something else that wouldn't be on the table half an hour later.

Harry remembered how swiftly Dumbledore had moved on more than one occasion in the past, how nimbly yet decisively he'd fought against Voldemort in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic less than eighteen months ago.  Did Blaise need to know that?  Probably not, so he made a noncommittal sound in his throat rather than answer.  Fortunately the post began to arrive then and Blaise's owl delivered a copy of the _Sunday Prophet_ to him, dropping it onto a clear space of the table with evident relief.  Blaise picked it up and grimaced as a small avalanche of supplements and advertisements cascaded out of the middle of the newspaper.

"That's why I don't have a subscription," Harry said wryly.  "Even less news and more rubbish than usual."  He plucked a stray advertisement out of Blaise's kedgeree and shook his head.  "Do you need a loan for a new broom?"

"No.  I don't need insurance for my broom either, or a new sofa.  Do you want the cartoons section?"

"No thanks.  I like my humour to be funny."

"Cookery section?  Finance?  Travel?  No, I thought not."

"Give 'em to the house-elves," Harry advised.  "They make them into a kind of brick for lighting fires."

Blaise gave him an odd look.  "Do I want to know how you know that?"

"I keep low company," Harry explained.  He turned back to his kippers and began a mental review of his plans for the day.  He had a Legilimancy lesson with Dumbledore before lunch and a couple of essays he needed to work on.  He was having an hour-long special session with the newest members of the Quidditch team mid-afternoon.  And he needed to finish working on his snake and see if it Animated successfully, as Professor Flitwick had hinted that he wanted to progress Harry to something more complicated during their next lesson.  Fortunately all that needed doing to the snake now was to attach the last few sections of the body and cover it with a 'skin'.  He and Sirius had unearthed a trunk full of scarves and shawls at Black Manor over the summer and one of them had been a kind of silver lamé material that Harry proposed to use for the snake's skin, although he rather thought it was going to give him some trouble when he came to stitch it up.

He wondered if Granger was any good at that kind of thing and could advise him.  But the aggravation she would give him for asking probably wasn't worth it.

"Anything worth reading in the paper?" he asked Blaise as he finished his last bit of bread and butter.

"Nothing but rubbish," Blaise grumbled.  "Why do they write such stuff?  The newspapers in Italy aren't like this.  There's hardly anything that wasn't in yesterday's edition."  He turned a page.  "Oh - there were a couple of mystery house fires in the night.  The MLE is investigating."

"What's that about?"

"They don't say, but they quote one of the householders as saying Muggles did it."

Harry felt a twinge of annoyance at this.  "Does this person have a name?"

"No … it says they wanted to remain anonymous."

"Which means they probably don't exist," Harry said scornfully.  "Typical _Prophet_ reporting!"

"Why would they lie about something like that?" Blaise asked, lowering the newspaper to frown at Harry.  "What would be the point?"

Harry gave him a sharp look in return.  "Blaise, you don't seriously think Muggles did it, do you?"

"Muggles have been burning us for centuries – "

"But not legally for about three hundred years – because it's _illegal_ ," Harry said impatiently.  "Most Muggles don't even believe in magic anymore.  Some stupid Muggle kids might – _might_ – have set light to one house as a bad joke because they were bored and the old lady who lived there wore funny clothes and kept too many cats, but two houses, both with magical families living in them?  Come off it!  Most wizard houses can't even be seen by Muggles from the outside.  Either both families had some kind of accident and set the houses on fire themselves, or there's something funny going on.  Who are they anyway?"

"It doesn't say."  Blaise didn't look convinced by Harry's comments.

"Well, that's funny in itself."

And it was.  Most magical folk loved having an excuse to appear in the _Prophet_ – a house fire would be a real opportunity to wax melodramatic in front of the whole community.  Harry wondered what was really going on as he pushed his plate away and picked up his book bag.

These days, things like house fires weren't necessarily accidents anymore and that was what bothered him.

 

xXx

 

Working on the snake model was a very soothing occupation, Harry had found.  His experiences with his earlier dragon puppet, and extensive reading of _Skinner & Bonewright's Fantastical Anatomy_ had helped him to produce a much more anatomically correct rendering of bones and joints and given him a better understanding of how the snake needed to move.  Once the individual parts were crafted, stringing them together with fine wire was a fiddly but relatively uncomplicated task which allowed him to brood on other things.

He spent a long time thinking about the two house fires and their possible significance; news like this, while probably unrelated to him personally, nevertheless always served to remind him that he was cocooned at Hogwarts and that things were still going on in everyday life that might or might not have some impact upon him in some way.

It reminded him that Voldemort was still out there.  But there wasn't a lot he could do about that.

Once the final section of the tail was strung into place, Harry spent a few minutes moving the skeletal body about on the desk with just his hands, making sure that the joints would hold together securely but weren't so tight as to hamper the model's free movement.  He touched it with his wand and gave it a little magical 'boost' and it wriggled about in a clattering sort of way; difficult to tell from that if it would be convincing, but at least it did move.

Harry released the model and took the lamé shawl out of his toolbox, spreading it out on the desk next to the snake.  There was more than enough material to cover the frame, but when he examined it more closely he began to feel a little doubtful about it.  To make the skin look moderately realistic it would have to fit very closely to the 'bones', but the lamé cloth had very little stretch to it.  If he stitched it to the frame there might not be enough give for the snake to move about properly.

This was disappointing and annoying; Harry had been pleased with the discovery of the old shawl, but now it might be useless after all and he had limited means of getting something different to replace it, especially when Professor Flitwick was expecting to see the finished puppet on Wednesday morning.  Harry wasn't even sure what would do for a replacement, as wizards didn't use elasticated fabrics much.  Something like a stocking might work, although he'd probably have to transfigure the surface to look more like scales ….

Harry rubbed his eyes.  What was he thinking?  Where the hell would he find a stocking at Hogwarts?!

Well … one of the female professors might wear stockings, he supposed.  McGonagall or Sinistra, perhaps.  He was assailed by a sudden vision of himself breaking into their private rooms and raiding their underwear drawers for hosiery – or, better still, marching up to one of them and _asking_ for a stocking.  The thought gave him a sudden snort of laughter.  Yeah, right - only if he really wanted to spend the rest of the school year as a walrus.

It occurred to him that his father and Sirius would have seen 'obtaining' one of Sinistra's stockings as a worthy challenge for a Marauder.  Harry was less inclined to put his neck on the line at the moment, bearing in mind the fall-out from the so-called riot in Slytherin.  Besides, acquiring a reputation as someone who stole items of female underwear was something he'd rather avoid.

He wondered if any of the girls of his acquaintance wore stockings.  

Granger wouldn't.  She had the look of a girl who wore those thick, opaque tights when the occasion demanded that she cover up, which might do at a pinch but really he only needed one leg.

Pansy or Daphne might wear them.  Pansy especially.  Harry briefly considered bribing Millicent to steal one for him, but unless he was prepared to tell her why he wanted it – and he wasn't - the bribe for something like this would be, well, unimaginable.  And he didn't believe for one minute that it would rule out future blackmail attempts.

Amy Snodgrass …?  No, no and no.  Harry told himself that he was not about to start imagining Amy in stockings, let alone contemplate asking her if he could have one.

This was ridiculous.  He was a NEWT level Transfiguration student; _surely_ he could manage to transfigure something else into a stocking?  He rummaged in his toolbox and pulled out a narrow length of dark red silk, one of the many scraps of silk remnants that Remus had bought for him early in the summer when he was first working on three dimensional projects.  Silk wasn't a bad medium; it was strong and diaphanous and if he sewed it into a rough tube shape it would be more likely to transfigure smoothly.

Harry sighed irritably as he threaded a needle.  Creating a stocking was only the beginning; he would still have to give it scales somehow and if that didn't work he'd be back where he started.  Well, he would just have to ask Dobby to steal a stocking for him from the school laundry if that happened.  The bigger question was how to produce a scaled effect.

He paused to scowl at the useless lamé scarf.  Perhaps there was a way to merge the scarf and the stocking somehow?  Melding characteristics of two different objects during transfiguration was a common beginner's mistake (witness the number of willow patterned tortoises that were created from china teapots during second year classes), so it was certainly possible.

When Harry had agreed to be trained in Animation, no one had mentioned that he would end by becoming some kind of crazed handicraft nut.  The blurring of boundaries between disciplines _had_ been vaguely mentioned somewhere as he recalled, but given how opposed most wizards seemed to be about mixing disciplines generally, it did leave him wondering where exactly he stood sometimes.  Professor Flitwick had a very rigid notion of boundaries where Animation was concerned.  Professor Dumbledore, on the other hand, seemed to be encouraging Harry to spread out a little and push those boundaries, to explore how the various magical disciplines blended and worked together.

Harry was suddenly reminded of the book he'd found in the library at Black Manor that talked about golems and manual animation.  Professor Flitwick had effectively confiscated it when he'd seen it in the pile of books Harry had brought to school with him, but Harry still wasn't convinced by his explanations for this.  He understood the prohibition on Animating the dead and creating golems, but he still didn't understand what the problem was with manual animation.  So it wasn't pure Animation, using spells instead of an inborn magical gift.  Surely it still had its uses, especially if, as Gaius Black had seemed to believe, the two forms of animation could be made to work together somehow?  Couldn't there be useful and ethical applications?

That was the question, though.  What would one use it for?  There had to be more useful applications for any form of animation besides toy-making and portraiture.  It occurred to Harry that, just as an example, more efficient artificial limbs for people like Mad-Eye Moody might be a worthwhile application.  Pure Animation might make the limb work and manual animation place it under the control of user.  If it was possible to produce something like a golem, which was effectively the size of a whole human body –

Harry stopped in the middle of stitching the silk.  Something had just clicked rather oddly in his mind.

During the ritual that had raised Lord Voldemort certain _ingredients,_ for want of a better term, had been put into a cauldron and a spell used to meld them together to produce a living, breathing, working body for him.  Until that point Voldemort had been little more than a disembodied spirit that had been temporarily encased in the merest remnant of flesh; his mind had operated but almost nothing else functioned in a human sense.

How did one create a whole new body from snake venom, blood and a severed hand?  More than that, how did one weld a displaced spirit into that body once it was formed, making it possible for body and soul to operate as one again?  Would the soul even recognise the body as it's proper 'home', or would there be some … disconnection?  Would there be an effort for the two to work in tandem?

Harry screwed his eyes closed for a moment, his brain overspilling with ideas and questions.  Now he understood why Dumbledore felt the need for a Pensieve.

He didn't have the answers to his own questions, but suddenly it seemed like they might be very relevant.  And by great good fortune – perhaps! – he had a lesson later with a man who often had answers.

 

xXx

 

Some considerable time later Harry was finally satisfied with his snake.  The piece of silk had transfigured quite satisfactorily into a stocking (albeit a dark red one) and with a little effort and creative thinking Harry managed to transfer the metallic surface of the lamé scarf onto it.  It was, however, rather flimsy so he covered all but the head of the snake with a piece of soft lining material from the sleeve of his robe (it was an old one anyway, worn only at weekends), to protect the stocking from snagging on the balsawood frame.  Stretched over the snake's body, the stocking made a rather pleasing 'skin' which showed a reddish flecking underneath the silver when it was moved about.  The only real problem was forming the mouth, which was something he hadn't tried with his three-dimensional dragon, but by making sure the open end of the stocking was at the head end, he could tuck it inside the mouth and stitch it there.  A bit fiddly, but doable, although he had to remove the fangs first and reattach them after the mouth was stitched.

The final touch was the eyes, and Professor Flitwick had given him two small beads made out of polished quartz for the purpose.  Harry attached them very carefully with some strong silk thread.  He had to make himself put away all his tools and other bits and pieces tidily, but once that was done he grabbed his wand and turned back to the snake.

Now that he had received extensive training, Harry recognised the feel and shape of the magic inside him that was the inborn gift of Animation.  'Touching' it very gently, he drew it out and silently shaped the tendril of power into a kind of 'pulse' that he fed through his wand into the model snake.  Other magic flowed, Professor Flitwick had taught him, but Animation pulsed like the human heartbeat, a strand of simulated life-force guided by a wizard's will alone.

And the snake shivered into life, twitching all down the length of its body until the tip of the tail quivered.  Then the whole body flexed and began to draw itself up into tight coils, slowly looping and curling around itself like the snakes Harry had seen in Professor Snape's private office, its quartz eyes fixed on Harry.  Its mouth opened in a silent hiss –

"Damn it!" Harry grumbled and he deAnimated the model. 

After all that, he'd forgotten to attach the forked ribbon tongue.

 

xXx

 

All in all, the snake had taken considerably longer to complete than Harry had intended, and now time was very tight for getting to his lesson with Dumbledore.  He was grateful that he had his Legilimancy book in his bag already, for there was no time to run back to his dormitory now and no time to drop the snake and toolbox off at Professor Flitwick's office as he'd planned either.  There was nothing for it but to shrink the toolbox to lighten his bag, although the snake Harry very carefully wrapped in the now denuded lamé scarf and tucked it inside a old cloth shoe-bag he'd kept for the purpose.

There was no time to take one of the more secret routes to the Headmaster's office either; the most direct route was out through the original third floor entrance.  Harry thought it safe enough on this occasion though, as he'd entered the room earlier from another direction.  Checking the wards with a care that he felt sure even the demanding Kingsley Shacklebolt would approve of, Harry locked the room behind him and set off cautiously down the stairs.

He was at the bottom step of the spiral staircase when he sensed something was wrong.  He stopped at once, going very still, every sense on the alert. 

There was a very faint tingling across his skin.

As quietly as he could, Harry lowered his bags and placed them silently on the stairs behind him.  Then he reached out very slowly and carefully towards the space between the two walls that framed the entrance to the staircase.  And halted again just in time.

There was definitely something there, just a hair's breadth from his fingertips.  It wasn't an illusion, but there was something covering the entrance – a ward of some kind, most likely. 

Harry offered up silent thanks for whatever combination of luck and ancestry had endowed him with his strong sense for 'ambient' and latent magics.  He pulled his wand from his sleeve and began a careful, painstaking examination of the edges of the thing to discover what it was intended to do.

It was light and delicate, and he gave the creator points for that although it quickly became clear that they hadn't finished the job as neatly as they could have.  In fact, it occurred to Harry that if the unknown person _had_ done the job properly he might not have known it was there until he triggered it.  In that respect he was grateful for one thing; whoever the creator was, it wasn't Malfoy.  That became obvious as soon as he realised the ward was simply some kind of early warning device like the trip spells he'd laid all over the passage leading up to these stairs.  Malfoy wouldn't have wasted time and magic on a simple alarm spell.

Harry couldn't have said precisely why he thought it, but he got a strong impression from the ward that it had been set by a female.  It just had a magical flavour, an overtone that he associated with the girls of his acquaintance.  But the magical signature was mostly unfamiliar.

Mostly.  That bugged him, because there was something about it that made him think he ought to know the caster's identity. 

More than that, he could tell by the vibrations of the ward that it had been cast very recently – recently enough that the creator might even still be nearby.  That thought bugged him even more.  Someone was laying a trap for him and he was damned if he was going to get caught in it.  On the other hand, he was now definitely running late for his lesson with Dumbledore and that made him feel quite irrationally angry with whoever this person was.  Harry hated being late for something when he had no good reason for it; it was rude, dammit.

Right.  Fine.  Whoever this was would get what was coming to them.

Leaving his bags where they were for the moment, Harry briskly – but with care – removed the ward.  Then he leaned cautiously around the corner of the wall and gave a kind of twisting flick to his wand.

 _"Somnus,"_ he intoned very quietly, and he pumped as much power into the Sleeping Charm as he dared.

The power flowed out of him in a small river, flooding through the passage and tingling over the trip spells like a tiny electrical current across his skin.  With increasing anger Harry noted that a number of them had been deliberately severed, cutting a direct path through the passage up to the stairs.  That anger gave his magic a sudden extra pulse – but perhaps that was just as well, for a split second later he could tell that there was definitely someone else there, hiding in the old Intexometry classroom on the right hand side.  She was covered with a shield charm – oh yes, it was definitely a she! – but Harry's magic hit her like a tidal wave and while she was good, very good in fact, she was no match for his considerably greater magical strength.  Her shield collapsed almost at once and the sleep spell rolled inexorably over her.

Harry pulled back on the spell as soon as he knew she was overcome.  For a second the power rolling back into him through his wand made him feel dizzy and sick; he sat down abruptly on the bottom step of the stairs and put his head between his knees, and after a minute or two it passed.

Wow.  He had to remember to be more careful when he did that in future.

Getting up carefully, Harry picked up his bags and shouldered them.  Then he went to see who his Sleeping Charm had caught.

The door to the Intexometry classroom was open a crack when he got there – enough that someone standing inside could see out without necessarily being seen.  Harry wondered if the spy had just wanted to see who it was, or whether they had intended something more than that.  Wand at the ready, he cautiously pushed the door open and the edge of it caught against the body lying on the floor behind it.  Looking around the edge Harry could see a pair of trainers, denim jeans, a dark green t-shirt under a faded denim jacket that was too big for the wearer –

Long red hair and pale skin with a light spray of cinnamon freckles.  And a Gryffindor prefect's badge was pinned to the collar of the jacket, just below a tattered embroidered badge bearing the logo of the British Magizoologists' Association.

Ginny Weasley.

Harry nearly swore out loud.

What the _hell_ was she doing there?  What did she think she was playing at – and for that matter, how had she discovered Harry's bolt-hole?  Had she been following him?  _Why_ would she be following him?  He had nothing to do with her, they were a year apart in classes, they hadn't even faced off in a Quidditch match this year yet; they rarely encountered each other because there was simply no reason for them to.  They hadn't had any kind of extended contact since Harry had pulled Ginny out of the Chamber of Secrets five years ago.  One embarrassed expression of gratitude from her in the Headmaster's office afterwards, and she'd ceased to be of any particular interest to him.  She was just Ron's little sister, the youngest of the Weasley clan. 

Shit.  Now what was he supposed to do?

The temptation to levitate her unconscious body out of this wing of the castle and perform a memory charm was almost overwhelming, but Harry balked at it.  He didn't have a lot of practice at memory charms, and in any case he hadn't forgotten what had happened when Gilderoy Lockhart's wand had backfired on him in the middle of one.  It had undeniably been a happy circumstance at the time, but Harry didn't fancy spending the next few years learning his own name again in St. Mungo's.

The only other choice he could see would be to levitate Ginny out of there and leave her in some condition that would make her very unwilling to talk to anyone about what had happened here.

And then he would try to come up with a way to stop her coming back.

That one stumped Harry a little but he simply didn't have the time to brood on it.  Putting his bags down once more, he levitated her body carefully out of the classroom and hastily down the passage to the bottom of the stairs.  Fortunately, the entrance to the third floor was off the beaten track a little and there was no one around.  After a couple of moments' desperate thought, he came up with what he hoped was a suitably embarrassing idea to shut her up when she awoke.

Then he belted back up the stairs to the third floor.  There was no time left to be subtle; with a speed and force that made him sweat a little, Harry slapped a ward across the spiral stairs in place of Ginny's own, pumping power into the weave of it until the static coming off it brought the hair up on his arms.  Anyone trying to breach that now would regret it a _lot_ and in a hurry.  Then he repaired all of the severed trip spells and moved them around a bit, so that they weren't in predictable locations.

That would have to do.  Harry retrieved his bags and took off for Dumbledore's office as though he had the legendary Wild Hunt behind him.

 

xXx

 

"So, Harry, have you read your copy of _Exploring the Pathways Of The Mind_ by the esteemed Madam Pickersgill?"

Harry's face screwed up just a little.  "Yes, Professor, but …."

"But?"  Dumbledore waved him towards a chair.  "Do sit down, dear boy.  You wish to take issue with Madam Pickersgill?"

"Well, Sir – why do books like this talk a lot about the thing but never actually explain how to do it?" Harry asked, frustrated.  He took the comfortable leather armchair the Headmaster indicated and put his bags on the floor next to it.  "It's the same with Occlumency – except that there don't seem to be any books just about Occlumency, it's just mentioned occasionally here and there."

"We do seem to have a rather unregulated publishing industry, don't we?" Dumbledore observed, giving Harry a familiar twinkling look over the top of his spectacles.  "Quite useful volumes struggle to find a publisher at all, or the author finds himself forced to pay for publication and distribution personally, whilst distressingly inept and even, I regret to say, _dishonest_ books are published to great acclaim.  It causes a great deal of unnecessary work, I often feel, even without taking into account the potential consequences."

Harry looked at him, perplexed and unsure if Dumbledore was even criticising someone, if anyone, with this statement.  It was probably better not to enquire; he was here to learn Legilimancy after all, and he'd learned early on that Dumbledore could sometimes digress into rambling and before you knew it you were out of his office without having actually achieved your objective for being there in the first place.  He was never entirely sure if this was deliberate on the Headmaster's part, but as he knew that Dumbledore never really lost sight of things, no matter what the indications were to the contrary, he had to assume that it probably was.

"Well, I don't know that I know much more about Legilimancy now than I did before I read the book," Harry said.

"I see.  Then perhaps we had best start with that."  Professor Dumbledore waved his wand and the ubiquitous tea tray appeared on the table in front of Harry.  Then he sat in an armchair right next to Harry's elbow.  "Tell me what you believe you already know of Legilimancy."

"I know it's not mind-reading," Harry said at once, and the corner of his mouth twitched.  "Professor Snape says it's not mind-reading, anyway.  You … you somehow go into a person's mind and get a kind of idea of what they're thinking by … um … by what they're feeling and from images you pick up from their mind, right?"

"Hm.  I think perhaps it can be described a little more clearly than that, but the subject in essence – yes, one probes the mind in question and by sifting through available mental images and the feelings they invoke, with practice one may extract certain useful information.  In order for the information to be relevant, however, one must develop a further technique which allows one to _guide_ the mind being probed into revealing the information one requires."  Dumbledore looked at Harry over the top of his spectacles again.  "The simplest way to achieve this is to manipulate the emotional state of the subject.  An emotional person is less guarded about their thoughts, you see."

"Which is why you have to empty your mind and try to be unemotional when you do Occlumency.  I get that."

"Quite so."  Dumbledore gave him a little smile.

"But once you have access to a person's mind," Harry continued, frowning thoughtfully, "then really it's just a matter of time and, um, skill before you find what you're looking for, isn't it?"

"Yes, but you must remember that most people will not simply permit you to roam their mind at will.  Unless they voluntarily grant you access, they will be doing their best to eject you.  Ineffectually in the most part, as the majority of witches and wizards are untrained in the art of Occlumency, but their struggles and agitation may be distracting and uncomfortable enough for _you_ that you might not find what you are looking for anyway.  And even a person who voluntarily allows you into his mind will have some involuntary reflex to eject you.  Legilimancy, Harry, is not a comfortable practice.  You must prepare yourself for considerable mental discomfort and quite possibly a physical reaction to that discomfort as well." 

"Sounds like a lot of effort," Harry remarked.

"The important things in life often are, dear boy."

"I suppose so.  Although it's probably worth it _if_ you get anything useful from the other person's brain."

"That is a matter of practice," Dumbledore replied.  "So.  Shall we make the attempt?"

Harry gave him an uncertain look.  "But I still don't know how to do it."

"Ah."  Dumbledore seemed to think about this, although why it suddenly took thinking about Harry couldn't imagine.  It wasn't like he hadn't already said that he didn't know how Legilimancy worked.  "Well, Harry – one must use one's imagination."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause.

"And do what, Sir?" Harry asked finally.

"And then you must think yourself into my mind," Dumbledore told him, as though this was obvious.

Harry decided that he was definitely going to fail at Legilimancy. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The lesson had been scheduled for an hour, but it was rather longer than that before Harry finally gathered up his things and walked unsteadily out of Dumbledore's office.  He had a remarkably potent headache that was pretty much all he had to show for nearly two hours' effort and a missed lunch.  He hadn't succeeded in entering the Headmaster's mind once during that time, not even for a moment.  But given the lack of concrete instructions, this didn't really come as much of a surprise to Harry. 

He felt a similar sense of frustration now as he had after his early Occlumency lessons with Professor Snape, and wondered how on earth he was supposed to master this new skill without any clear description of how it was supposed to be done.  It was tempting to shred Madam Pickersgill's useless book, just to relieve his feelings, but that would involve exertion of some kind and Harry didn't feel up to anything of the sort.  What he really wanted was an effective headache potion, but he didn't want to subject himself to Madam Pomfrey's tender mercies.  He might end up spending another night in the infirmary and he couldn't afford that.  Too much else to do.

It occurred to Harry later that it was fortunate nobody like Malfoy was monitoring his visit to Dumbledore's office that day, as there was a period between him stepping off the moving staircase and reaching his unintended destination that he didn't entirely remember.  All he knew was that suddenly his feet were walking him through the most public of the entrances to the kitchens, at which point his brain decided to wake up enough to point out that this was a pretty good place to be.  The house-elves would know what to do for him.

And they did.  This wasn’t the first time Harry had appeared in the kitchens looking a bit odd; he was suddenly surrounded by elves who gently guided him to a table, took careful charge of his bags and made sure that there was a mug of hot tea in front of him.

"Do – do you have a headache potion please?" Harry heard himself ask the nearest elf faintly.

"Tisky is fetching a potion, Harry Potter Sir.  Harry Potter Sir is please drinking his tea and eating something …."

A plate appeared in front of him containing two sturdy chicken and ham sandwiches.  Harry couldn't honestly say that he felt very hungry, but he picked one up automatically and took a bite.  His tastebuds perked up at once and by the time Tisky had returned with a vial of potion the plate was nearly clear.  He reached for the mug of tea and gulped it down, suddenly very thirsty.

"Tisky has a headache potion for Harry Potter Sir."

"Thank you," Harry said, relieved, and he knocked it back in one shiver-inducing draught.

 _Oh_ , that was nasty.  He drained the last of his tea to get rid of the taste and suddenly felt the fog lifting from his brain.  He looked around, very relieved, and found the elves watching him anxiously.

"Thank you," he said fervently, and he was rewarded by them beaming and nodding at him happily.  His plate magically refilled itself with more sandwiches and his mug with fresh tea.  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Harry ate the lot.  By the time the second mug of tea was finished, he felt almost human again.

At which point he thought to wonder what time it was.  A quick glance at his watch sent him scrabbling for his bags.

"Shit!  Quidditch practice!"

 

xXx

 

It wasn't until Harry was changing after a gruelling Quidditch practice that a sharp reminder from Madam Hooch to make way for the Gryffindor team, who had the pitch booked next, reminded him of the incident with Ginny Weasley.

He was brought up short for a moment, wondering if she had made it back to Gryffindor after the way he'd left her.  It was tempting to hang around until the Gryffindor team arrived and see if she was with them, but he didn't want to run the gauntlet of their usual comments under Ron's eyes.  Besides, it was probably better if he didn't have a direct run-in with Ginny at this point.

Something would have to be done about her, though, and Harry couldn't think what.  He still couldn't decide what she had been doing there.  Had she followed Ron or Hermione?  If she had – why?  And even if she had, why was she following him now?  What possible business could his movements be of hers?

Dammit.  Perhaps he should just speak to Ron about it.  Except that Ron was about to start Quidditch practice.  Christ only knew how long he would be or whether it would be possible to engineer a meeting with him afterwards.

Frustrated, Harry went back to his dormitory to stow his kit.  He was still dragging his book bag and craft kit around, including the snake puppet, and when he opened his trunk to put some of it away he was reminded of the two essays he still needed to finish.

Shit.  What a lousy day.

Blaise came in as he was trying to sort out his parchment, textbooks and quills.

"Heading for the library?" he asked.  "I'll go with you, if you like.  I'm due on prefect patrol in an hour, but I need to do my Charms homework."

"Okay."  Harry tucked his things into his bag, including the bag containing the snake.  Perhaps when he left the library there would be time to drop it off at Professor Flitwick's office.

Even in the hush of the library, concentrating was not easy.  Once again Harry felt that he had too many ideas buzzing around in his brain and he was really beginning to wish that he'd brought his Pensieve to Hogwarts with him.  It would have been nice to siphon some of them off so that he could get on with his essays.  Once Blaise left he didn't even have a good reason to put on the pretence of study, and he finally closed his textbooks and pushed them away, closing his eyes for a moment.

 _Shut up, brain.  Please._

He opened them again and was just in time to see Hermione walking over to the next table and setting her own pile of textbooks and parchment down there.  There was a tiny flash from the lapel of her robe as she took her seat; her Head Girl badge had caught the light from one of the table lamps.

That gave Harry an idea.

Carefully tearing one of his sheets of parchment in half, he scribbled a quick line and folded the note up into a simple origami bird.  He looked around quickly; Hermione was almost directly in front of him but with her back turned to him.  There was no one else sitting close by and the library was quiet in any case. 

He tapped the little bird with his wand and sent a short pulse of power into it.  It took off and flapped its way over to Hermione's table, dropping over her shoulder; Harry saw her tiny start of surprise when it landed on her open book.  For a moment he thought she might look around to see who had sent it, but as he'd hoped she must have guessed at once that it was him from the Animation.  She unfolded the note and read it.  Then she seemed to put it aside and turned back to her books.

Harry wondered belatedly how she would reply to him, if indeed she intended to.  But he needn't have worried; nearly an hour later, just as he was considering packing up his books again and going to dinner, she got up and passed his table without looking at him.  She went to one of the nearest shelves and selected a book, and as she passed by him to return to her table a scrap of parchment fluttered from the sleeve of her robe to fall at his feet.

Harry picked it up when he bent to tuck his belongings back into his book bag at his feet.  He didn't read it until he was well away from the library and certain that there was no one else around.

His original note – _I need to speak to you and R about something urgently, and not at the room – can we meet tonight?_ \- had a line through it and underneath, in Hermione's very neat, small writing was a single line in response: _Prefects' Office, 8.00 pm._

 

xXx

 

"Why here?" Ron muttered to Hermione, as they approached the Prefects' Office on the second floor.

"Because Tony has a regular tutorial with the first year Ravenclaws on Sunday evening and all the other prefects received their assignments yesterday.  The office should be empty," she replied equally softly. 

"By why not - "

"Hush."  Hermione grasped the door handle and whispered a password.  "Quick, inside."

They hurried into the room and she quickly shut the door behind them, muttering _"Lumos!"_ to raise the lights.  Ron glanced around at the office, which was a cramped little room not much bigger than a cupboard containing almost nothing but hard wooden chairs.  There was a filing cabinet in one corner and a large presentation board on one wall.  A corkboard on the wall behind the door had prefect rosters pinned on it.  That was it.  He remembered some of the meetings here during his short-lived year as a Gryffindor prefect and was grateful that he'd handed the badge in.  Being a prefect was a pain in the arse, although Hermione seemed to enjoy it.

"Why not that room of Harry's?" he said, turning back to Hermione.

"Because he said not.  I expect he'll explain when he gets here," she replied.  She frowned.  "I hope he thinks to knock.  We're a little early."

"That's okay, I let myself in," Harry's voice said dryly, making them both jump.  There was a ripple in the air next to the corkboard and he slipped out of his Invisibility Cloak, slinging it over one shoulder.

Ron thought Hermione's eyes might drop out. 

"Potter!  What - how - the password - !"

"Relax," he said shortly.  "I got here about ten minutes ago and followed Greengrass inside.  She was messing with those papers on the board."

Hermione let out an exasperated exclamation.  "If she's changed her duty rotation again, I'll report her to Professor McGonagall.  She hasn't done a single patrol in a _week_ and she's supposed to check with Tony or me before she changes it again - "

"Sod Greengrass!" Harry snapped.  "I've got a bigger problem.  I caught Ron's sister lying in wait for me on the third floor this morning."

 _"What?"_   Hermione stared at him, then closed her eyes for a moment.  "Oh no."

Ron felt his stomach lurch a little.  "Shit ...."

"Yeah, _shit_ ," Harry retorted in a surly tone.  "As in - _we'll all be in it at this rate_.  What the fuck was she doing there, do you know?"

"What makes you think she was lying in wait for you?" Hermione asked.

"That'd be the trip charms she disarmed, the alarm ward she set across the turret stairs and the fact that she was hiding out inside one of the classrooms!"

"Did she catch you?"

"No, but only because I can feel wards before I touch them!  I knocked her out and dumped her back on the main corridor."  Harry raised a brow, looking from one to the other of them.  "She didn't mention it, then?"

"No," Ron said, rather hollowly.  "She was in a really pissy mood all through lunch and Quidditch practice though."  He saw Harry's rather nasty smile at this.  "What did you do?" he demanded.

Harry shrugged.  "Made sure she wouldn't want to say anything to anyone."

"What did you do?" Hermione repeated sharply.

"Stripped her and dumped most of her clothes in a planter at the far end of the corridor."  Harry dipped a hand into his robe pocket and pulled out something that he held out to Hermione.  "Here, you might want to take these though."

"Potter!" Hermione nearly shrieked.  "You stole her _underwear?!_ "

Harry raised his brows.  "I left the rest of her clothes, didn't I?"

Ron stared at him, flabbergasted.  His mind was a blank and he couldn't think of a thing to say, but Hermione had no such problem.

"You filthy little pervert!" she raged.  "I don't care what she did, you have no right to humiliate her like that!  And as for stealing her underwear - "

"Bollocks to that!" Harry said, rolling his eyes.  "It's not like she's got anything worth looking at, even if I was interested and I'm not.  She shouldn't have been following me, Granger, so she got what she deserved - "

"She deserved to be sexually assaulted?" Hermione cried.

"Do what?"  Harry looked genuinely appalled.  "I did not!"

"You knocked her out, stripped her naked, _stole her underwear_ , and left her in a public corridor!" Hermione shouted.  She was scarlet with fury, stabbing a finger at him like a weapon.  "What do _you_ call that in your bizarre little world, Harry Potter, if it isn't sexual assault?"

"Uh ... I call it revenge, mostly," he said in a bewildered tone.

For a moment Ron thought Hermione might actually combust or something.  Then she let out a great snorting breath of rage, and turned to him.

"Ron?" she demanded sharply.  Her eyes were almost visibly emitting little sparks.

Ron shook his head and looked at Harry.  "Not on, mate," he managed.

"Not on?  _Not on?_ "  Hermione thumped his shoulder furiously.  "Ronald Weasley, that's your _sister_ you're talking about!"

"Well what do you want me to say?" he snapped back at her.  "Will you just give me a minute before you lay into me?  My brain took off for the Caribbean the minute he pulled her knickers out of his pocket!"

"He took all of her clothes off while she was incapable of defending herself – "

"I didn't _touch_ her!" Harry interrupted heatedly.  "If you must know, it's a charm – "

" – And left her where anyone could have found her!" Hermione continued, ignoring him.  "Anything could have happened!  How would _you_ like it if someone did that to you?"

"Someone _has_ done it to me," Ron said irritably.  "Fred and George!  Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but if you think being tied to a tree with no clothes on was any funnier for me – "

"Of course I don't think it's funny!" Hermione said angrily.  "That's my _point_."

"A lot of the stuff your brothers do isn't funny," Harry remarked, and Hermione swung around to glare at him.

"You hypocrite!"

"I didn't do it for a laugh, Granger!  I did it because I was short of time and I couldn't think of any other way to be sure she wouldn't talk about what happened!  And _I - did – not – touch – her._ "

"You couldn't think of anything better than stripping all her clothes off and stealing her underwear."  Hermione's rage and scorn were withering.  "Potter, that's the most pathetic excuse I've ever heard – even from a Slytherin!"

"Well, she hasn't talked about it, has she?" he snapped back.

"You'd better hope she doesn't!"

"That might be worse," Ron said, thinking of the few occasions when he'd got on the wrong side of Ginny's temper.  "It'd be horrible if she went to one of the teachers, but least you know where you stand with someone like McGonagall.  But if Ginny decides to get her own back, anything could happen."

Hermione opened her mouth to say something – to protest or say that it was what Harry deserved, maybe – and abruptly shut it again.  A look of mixed frustration, anger and dismay twisted her face for a moment.

"Damn it!" she said, softly but viciously.  "Potter, you are such an _idiot_.  Why couldn't you just have stunned her and left her there?"

"Because I didn't want her waking up and looking any further!"

"But why did you take her underwear?" Ron asked, hoping his tone wasn't as appalled as he actually felt about this aspect of the incident.

Harry groaned and ran a hand through his already upstanding hair.  "I thought - I dunno, I thought that maybe if she couldn't find them she'd worry a bit about where they might turn up if she talked.  I don't _know_ what I was thinking - I told you, I was in a hurry and late for a lesson with Dumbledore.  It's not like I expected to find her laying traps for me!"

"Does the word "overkill" have no meaning for you?" Hermione demanded.

"Oh, that's rich after what she did!  She'd already disarmed half the trip charms and set up a ward almost anyone else wouldn't have noticed, Granger.  Do you really think she would have got up and just walked away?"

"That room is warded shut!"

"And the wards can be broken by anyone with enough skill, time and determination," Harry said.  Some of the fight seemed to drain out of him as he said this, and Ron saw a pain line beginning to show between his friend's dark brows as though he had a headache.  "I told you before – any wards that aren't already part of the castle's defences aren't much more effective than an illusion.  If you know they're there, they can be stripped off."

"Then perhaps you need to find somewhere else to work in," Hermione said tartly, but she seemed to be backing down as well.  "That room seems to be attracting entirely too much attention already."

"I'm open to suggestions."

"Room of Requirement?" Ron suggested, although just the name made his ears feel hot after what they'd done in there last time.

Harry gave him a tired smile.  "I reckon that one's already a bit busy, mate.  Besides, that doesn't solve the problem of your sister.  If she's watching me, changing location isn't going to stop her, is it?"

"Not now she knows there's something going on," Ron noted dryly.

"Maybe I should talk to her," Hermione suggested, although she didn't look terribly keen on the idea.

"What are you going to say to her?" Harry asked, raising a brow.  "'Ginny, let's have a chat about this morning, when you were sticking your long nose into Harry Potter's business and he stole all your clothes'?"

"He's right," Ron said, before she could respond to this.  "There's nothing you can say to her about this that won't make her ask more questions, and it doesn't matter if you answer them or not because it'll never be enough for her.  She'll just get more and more pissed off and determined to find out what's going on."

"Then perhaps we should just tell her - "

"No!" Ron said sharply, and the other two looked at him in surprise, taken aback by his vehemence, although Harry looked approving too.  "This isn't about Ginny," Ron said, more to Hermione than Harry.  "She doesn't _need_ to know, she just _wants_ to know and that's not a good enough reason to tell her.  If we tell everyone who decides they want to know, then we might as well march up to Malfoy and tell him."

"If we told her she might be able to help," Hermione pointed out.

"Are you willing to take any bets on that, considering the mood she's been in lately?" Ron asked, raising a brow.  He was beginning to sweat a little, not just with the need to win the argument but with the awareness that he was hiding part of his hand and arguing with her like this could reveal it.  "Are you willing to take a risk on her not opening her mouth to her mates about it all?"

"She's a member of DA, Ron.  She understands there are bigger things at stake."

"Does she?" Harry asked dryly.

Ron offered silent thanks to God that Harry had said this for him.

"This is my life, Granger," Harry continued.  "Are you sure you're that confident about her?  Because it's not just me who gets screwed if it all goes wrong."

"What did Kingsley Shacklebolt keep saying to us over the summer?" Ron added.  "What's the worst that could happen?"

Hermione made an impatient sound.  "People might find out that Harry's having special duelling lessons!  But I don't see why you think Ginny - "

" _Malfoy_ finds out that I'm having special lessons, and not just in duelling," Harry interrupted.  "He tells his father, who tells Voldemort, who decides I'm suddenly too much of a risk to keep alive.  Then Malfoy gets a message that he has permission to kill me, whatever it takes."

"But he wouldn't do it," Hermione said, appalled.  "I know he's a revolting little beast, but I don't believe even he could deliberately kill a classmate!"

"He nearly killed me," Ron pointed out.

She put a hand over her eyes for a moment.  "Ron, I'm not trying to dismiss what he did to you, but I don't think he actually intended to kill you.  He did something incredibly dangerous, but I really think he only meant you to have an accident."

"He likes the indirect approach," Harry said sarcastically.  "Like in our third year, when he pretended to be a Dementor to try and make me fall off my broom in mid-air.  He didn't mean to kill me then, either - it was just a joke!  Just like the Sectumsempra Hex he set up over the door into our common room a couple of weeks ago, I suppose.  I ducked and it sliced up my bag, but Daphne Greengrass was two minutes behind me, Granger, and she's not as quick as me.  If I hadn't triggered it, she would have walked straight into it.  Now, I don't like her much but ...."

"Did you report it?" Hermione demanded.

"I'm not a prefect," Harry said with a shrug.  "I told Greengrass to report it, if she thought it'd do her any good."

"Harry - "

"Do I think he could kill me face to face?" Harry said.  "No, I don't.  He's a coward.  If he did that, he'd have to remember what it looked like to watch me die and I don't reckon he could stomach that.  But if he could do it from a distance, where he didn't have to see it happen, then yeah - I think he'd be up for that."

Silence.

"I still don't believe Ginny would put you at risk," Hermione said at last.

"Great," Harry said shortly.  "I wish I had your confidence in her.  But since it's _my_ life we're talking about, I reckon I've got a right not to trust her with stuff."

"I agree," Ron said quietly.  "She's my sister and I love her, but I don't think we can risk it."

"Fine," Hermione said wearily.  "What do you suggest we do then?"

Ron hesitated.  He remembered a day halfway through the summer holiday when he'd sat in Sirius Black and Remus Lupin's bedroom and listened while Professor Dumbledore asked him to look out for Harry.  _Consider yourself a member of the Order of the Phoenix_ , he'd said, _the Order will be behind you_.  Ron's father and brother Bill had been there, and Harry had been lying on the bed next to Lupin because Dumbledore had charmed him to sleep.  _If you need help or advice_ , his father had said, _I'll always be here for you.  If Miss Granger or your sister become too pressing, you may refer them to me,_ Professor Dumbledore had added.  _Alternatively, speak directly to Professor McGonagall._

"Let me deal with it," he said finally.

They both looked at him dubiously.

"No offence, mate, but what are the chances of her listening to you?" Harry asked.

"I don't think you should even try it," Hermione added, looking worried.  "Not under the current circumstances."

Ron bit down his aggravation.  He couldn't let either of them know what he was planning to do.  They mustn't either of them find out that he was a member of the Order, that had been made very clear to him.

"And no offence to _you_ two, but I've known Ginny a lot longer than either of you," he retorted.  "I didn't say I was going to talk to her, but I'll deal with it, okay?  Harry, did she see you at all before you stunned her?"

Harry shrugged and shook his head.  "Don't see how she could have."

"Fine.  Then she doesn't know for sure that it was you who did it."  Ron wasn't sure how that could help, but it certainly couldn't hurt at all.  "Hermione, we need to keep it that way.  Either dump that bra and knickers or – or could you get them back into her trunk without her knowing?"

"And what would be the point of that?" Hermione demanded.

"The _point_ is that only another Gryffindor girl can get into her dorm.  Even if she thinks it was Harry who ambushed her, there's no way he could get her stuff back into her trunk.  It'll keep her guessing."

"Not for long," she grumbled.

"It won't need to be for long," Ron said, and hoped that he was right.

What would the Headmaster or Professor McGonagall do?

 

xXx

 

 **22nd September – 30th September 1997**

Maybe it was due to the stress of the previous day, but Harry didn't sleep well that night.  He was hot and restless, and there was a dull ache not only in his head but all over his body.  It had mostly dissipated by the following morning but the lack of decent sleep, coupled with the first serious nightmare he'd had in a month or more, left him feeling drained and vaguely unwell.  He picked at his breakfast and when Blaise arrived at the table he raised his brows and bluntly told Harry that he looked terrible.

"You should see Pomfrey," he advised.

"Thanks, but I'd rather chew on a bubotuber," Harry replied.  He made an effort to look as though he wasn't about to fall face-first into his poached eggs.

"Suit yourself."  Blaise sat down and pulled the nearest toast rack to him.  "We have double Transfiguration this morning, you know."

"I know."  Harry wasn't looking forward to it given the way he was feeling, although at least his homework was done.

"Seeing Pomfrey might get you out of it."

"It's a nice thought, but I'd still rather have two hours of McGonagall."

"Your funeral."

Blaise gave up and let him be until the tables were all nearly full and the mail began to arrive.  He received his usual copy of the _Daily Prophet_ ; Harry got a letter from Sirius which dragged him out of his apathy at once.

 

 _Dear Harry,_

 _You are a pain in the neck, you know that?  It's a damn good thing I'm fond of you.  I've had two hideous letters in the last few days.  I'll save the one from Snape for you to laugh at when you come home for Christmas, but the one from Dumbledore burned my fingers, you horrible brat.  What have I told you about subtlety?  Riots in the dormitories are asking for trouble, although I give you bonus points for making them use the Lockdown Charm; your dad and I never quite managed that one.  Let me know if you work out how it operates._

 

Harry grinned.  He was willing to bet that Dumbledore had made the letter burn Sirius because he knew Harry's godfather wouldn't respond to the news of the riot the way he wanted him to.

 

 _Remus says I'm to ask you about the backfiring spell that landed you in the infirmary as well.  Actually, we'd like to know why you didn't bother to tell us about that, hm?  I thought we agreed you'd tell us about things like that in the future?_

"Nice try, Sirius," Harry mumbled to himself.  He didn't remember agreeing to any such thing.

"What's up?" Blaise asked, looking up from the front page of his newspaper.

"Oh – nothing.  My godfather nagging me."

 

 _Pettifer's fussing a bit too, so it looks like it's business as usual this term.  Keep up the good work._

 

This was less amusing.  What was Mr. Pettifer "fussing" about?  Harry hoped that this wasn't another instance of someone's happy, rosy image of the world being brutally disrupted by the inconvenience of Harry Potter's existence.

 

 _Now, about setting wards inside the castle.  Bloody hell, you don't ask much, do you?  Harry, I'm not saying it can't be done but I can't stress enough how dangerous it is.  If Dumbledore doesn't meddle with the castle magics, then that should tell you something.  Trying to tamper with any of the Founders' magics will do you significant damage - most likely a serious case of DEATH.  I am not joking here._

 _Regarding setting extra wards, if Dumbledore says it can only be done by pinning them over the top of the existing magics, then he's telling you the truth.  But there's more than one way to skin a kneazle.  Yes, someone determined enough can find them and strip them off but when you start talking about pitting yourself wizard against wizard, then it's all about who is stronger, more skilled, more sneaky.  And the fact is, Harry, you are probably one of the most powerful wizards of your generation.  If you're talking about going up against Draco Malfoy - and I'm sure you are, even if you weren't that specific in your letter - then you have the power advantage.  The Malfoys are, generally speaking, average wizards and like all average wizards their primary strengths lie in knowing how to use what power they have.  Lucius is an excellent example of this - he uses word, moneys and political connections first and magic second.  When he does use magic, he makes sure that he uses spells that others wouldn't know or wouldn't necessarily expect._

 _Now, on a general basis brain-power trumps magical power because magic is only as good as the way you make use of it.  So the question here is - how much smarter than you do you think Draco is?  Honestly?  Because I've noticed that you tend to assume that because you have the strength to flatten a mountain and can smell ambient magic from twenty feet away, then everyone must be able to, but that's just not the case, Harry.  If you've got the smarts to predict what he'll do, then you have the power to thwart him.  _

_Do you understand?  Stop thinking as though you have to arm-wrestle ogres all the time.  The only ogre among your enemies is Voldemort; the rest of them are goblins at best._

 

Harry frowned discontentedly.  This wasn't the reply he'd hoped for.

And he couldn't help thinking that Sirius was being a bit flippant in comparing Voldemort and his followers to an ogre and a bunch of goblins.  Even Dumbledore admitted that some of Voldemort's followers (Bellatrix Lestrange, for example) were almost as terrifying as Voldemort himself.

Besides, ogres weren't the sharpest quills in the pot, whereas goblins were at the very least human-smart.  If anything, Voldemort and his followers were the opposite, so it was a bad analogy all round, really.

 _Just a suggestion; start thinking more about the uses of illusions.  I love them, because most people underestimate the power of a well-crafted illusion.  And unlike you, most people can't feel them unless they're pumped up with enough magic to hide a small county.  A small, carefully designed and lightly-powered illusion will fool the best of wizards, particularly if you can use a more solid object to act as a base for it.  You want to hide a door?  See if there's a window nearby.  Make the door look like the window and the window look like the door.  Something like that.  Use your imagination._

 

Harry couldn't see how this would work if someone already knew the door was there, but he supposed it was worth further consideration.

 

 _And for Merlin's sake, remember to erase your wand-signature.  It's no good bloody hiding something if you slap your name all over the thing you use to hide it._

 

Teaching him to suck eggs again.  Harry had been erasing his wand-signature for the better part of two years now.  It was an ingrained habit.

 

 _Now, a couple of other  things before I send this –_

"I don't believe it."

Harry looked up.  "What?"

Blaise silently folded the _Daily Prophet_ back on itself and held out a page for him to read.  There was a photograph of a burned out building with a couple of people in MLE robes standing in the foreground, gesturing indignantly.  _Ministry Denies Death Eater Involvement In Weekend Arson Cases_ the headline read.

"What's new about that?" Harry asked, bemused.

"Keep reading."

Harry followed Blaise's finger and read the article underneath.  To his surprise the tone of it was decidedly sceptical, the author (identified only as a _Prophet_ "staff reporter") aggressively questioning a bulleted list of points taken from the MLE's initial report on the two arson attacks and sneering in barely-veiled terms at the "no Death Eater involvement" conclusion.

"That's unusual," he remarked casually, although it took an effort to look so unconcerned.  It was more than unusual, after all.  The _Prophet_ was practically the Ministry's mouthpiece and although they had been pushing the envelope a little since Voldemort's attack on Harry in Diagon Alley six months ago, this was the first time the newspaper had openly dared to question the official policy that Voldemort was not on the loose again.

"So the houses burning down weren't accidental," Blaise said and the look he gave Harry was … interesting.

"Probably just a bunch of Mudbloods anyway."  Malfoy's voice insinuated itself over the top of the newspaper, sounding smug.  "Who cares?"

"Maybe," Harry replied conversationally, passing the paper back to Blaise.  Blaise took the hint and turned a page, pretending to keep reading.  "But didn't you see the Minister's comments yesterday?  He said Muggles burned those houses down - why would they do that?"

"Like I said, Potter – who cares?"

"The _Daily Prophet_ does, apparently.  Which begs the question of which newspaper this really is, and what have they done with the real _Prophet?_ "

This raised a few nervous laughs down the table, and Malfoy glared at Harry disdainfully before pointedly turning his attention back to his own mail.  Judging by the expensive gilt-edged ivory parchment, the letter he was reading had come from his father.  Harry wondered idly if it was worth _accio_ -ing it from his bag later, when he wasn't looking.  Probably a waste of time; Malfoy had surely learned from Harry over the past few years and started warding his book-bag on principle.

Pity.  Harry shrugged inwardly and turned back to his own letter.

 

 _Now, a couple of other things before I send this.  Firstly, Father Marius cornered me today_ _and mentioned that he'd be popping up to see you soon, to give you a brief run through the Confirmation service.  I'm not sure how he'll fix it with Dumbledore, but he's one of the few of our people at the moment who have a legitimate reason to visit you at Hogwarts during term-time, so expect Fun And Games besides Bible stuff.  Incidentally, Remus says to tell you that he re-packed your Bible and prayer book in your trunk after you unpacked them when you thought he wasn't looking.  They're shrunken and disguised as a boxed set of_ Sudoku For Sorcerers _and he renewed the anti-stain-and-rip charms just in case._

 

Harry swallowed a sigh.  He should have known better than to think he could fool Remus - or to think that Father Marius would forget the interminable Confirmation classes.

 

 _Secondly, I charmed this letter for your eyes only, but just to be on the safe side I expect you to eat it at the first opportunity.  Constant vigilance!_

 _Take care and be good.  And if you can't be good, lie creatively._

 _Your loving godfather,_

 _Sirius_

 

Underneath, in a totally different handwriting, was a small postscript:

 

 _P.S. Don't listen to him.  Every time you tell a lie, somewhere in the world a puffskein meets a horrible end.  Do you want that on your conscience?  Just take care and be good.  Love, Remus._

 

Sometimes Harry thought that Remus was just as mad as Sirius.  Perhaps they were rubbing off on one another.  He folded up the letter and slipped it into his bag, and turned his attention back to the remains of his breakfast. 

Judging by the bustle of conversation around the tables, a number of other pupils had noticed the unusual tone of the _Daily Prophet_ article.  Harry took at best a cursory interest in the agitated newspaper flapping and the groups of pupils leaning over each others' shoulders to read the article and discuss it.  The occasional stares he was receiving were beginning to grate on his nerves, though.  He hoped he wasn't going to have to put up with this all day; why, whenever Voldemort's name was mentioned (or carefully talked around, more likely) did people insist on looking at him as though a Dark Mark was following him around like a balloon tied to his neck? 

He particularly disliked the slightly accusatory stares that he sometimes received.  There had been a short period, right after the Ministry fiasco when he was fifteen, when a number of stories about what had happened had temporarily escaped Cornelius Fudge's control and popped up in lesser publications like _The Quibbler_.  One of them had been so close to the truth that it almost certainly must have originated with a member of the Order of the Phoenix; that Harry was "the Chosen One" who was destined to save the wizarding world from Lord Voldemort.

Fudge had stamped that one out as soon as he possibly could, practically driving the weekly newspaper in question out of print, but rumours like that had a habit of lingering and popping up in odd places, and there was a small section of the public that still clung to the idea.  Unfortunately this didn't work much in Harry's favour, as they mostly also believed the stories of him being a dangerous menace.  They were more than happy with the idea of him being the one who would have to confront Voldemort if it became necessary, but they also clung to the comforting belief that it would be the death of him in the process.  In fact, mostly they seemed to be indignant that Harry wasn't getting on with it.

Blaise plucking at his sleeve pulled his attention back to his own table. 

"What?"

Blaise folded his newspaper over again and pointed to the uppermost page.  "Look."

"What do I want to read the Wizengamot Circular for?"  But Harry took the paper and scanned it.  It was mostly Family Court notices – the section of the Wizengamot that dealt with things like marriages, adoptions, deaths and inheritances.  Then he saw it.

 

 _On behalf of the Ancient and Noble House of BLACK, the Court Of Family Affairs hereby gives Formal Notice Of Impending Disinheritance._

 _May it be recorded that on this day, being the Twenty-Second day of the Month of September in the year of Our Lord Nineteen Ninety Seven, Sirius Mercurius Black, paterfamilias of the Family of Black, gives formal warning to his kinswoman Bellatrix Poppaea Lestrange (nee Black) that it is his intention to withdraw all rights and inheritances guaranteed to her by their mutual grandsire and paterfamilias Mercurius Octavian Black (now deceased) on the day of her birth.  This disinheritance being sought by him in the light of his kinswoman's distressing and perverse nature, including the committing of many most grievous and heinous criminal acts, bringing disgrace and disfavour upon all the acknowledged heirs and dependants of the Ancient and Noble House of Black._

 _Bellatrix Poppaea Lestrange (nee Black) is hereby notified that she has until the twenty-first day of the Month of September in the year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Two to present enduring and overriding evidence of good reason why the Act of Disinheritance should not be duly served upon her and all those claiming descent from her –_

 

"Did you know about it?" Blaise asked Harry.

"Sirius planning to disinherit her?  Of course – I told him he should do it," Harry replied.

He was aware of a sudden silence from the people sitting nearest to him, and especially that Malfoy was staring at him.  Even Blaise seemed shaken by this statement.

"Er ... that's ...."  He paused and took a breath.  "Disinheritance is a very serious step to take, Potter."

"No, is it?" Harry was tempted to mention that Gaius Black hadn't seemed too bothered when he tried to disinherit Sirius - surely a far more serious step - but let it go.  He couldn't keep the dryness out of his voice, though, as he said, "I thought being locked up in Azkaban for torturing people was worse, personally, but maybe I'm just funny that way."

"I'm not sure you can conflate the two things so easily," Blaise said.

Conflate?  It was on the tip of Harry's tongue to ask if this was the word of the day, but once again he swallowed it.  Mocking Malfoy was one thing, but Blaise was trying to be reasonable.  It wasn't his fault that he'd swallowed a dictionary and kept burping up obscure verbs.

"If that's not a good reason to kick someone out of the family, then what is?" he asked.

"Blood is blood," Blaise said slowly, after a moment's hesitation.

"So it's okay to disinherit your heir because he doesn't agree with you about something, but when one of the family commits murder you should just clasp them to your bosom, right?"

"You have no understanding of blood obligations at all!  You really are a Muggle, aren't you, Potter?" Malfoy said, looking contemptuous.

"Yeah, but I can still bite," Harry replied amiably.  "You're taking the news pretty well, aren't you?  But maybe you don't care.  I mean, she's your aunt and all but maybe even you and your mother think she's as mad as a hatter and better off out of the family.  Not that she's really a member of _your_ family anyway."

"What are you talking about?"

Harry raised his brows.  "Your Aunt Bellatrix.  Who did you think we were talking about?"

Malfoy seemed to turn white.  "What?"

"Show him, Zabini." 

"Potter," Blaise said, alarmed.  "Not again, please ...."

"Maybe it's time you rethought your loyalties, Zabini," Pansy said, her lip curling.  "He's a bit unstable himself!"

"Relax," Harry said, ignoring her.  "Malfoy's not going to start anything - he hasn't eaten his breakfast yet."

"Give me that!"  Malfoy reached across the table and snatched the newspaper out of Blaise's hands.

"If he spits on it, I'll buy you a new one," Harry told Blaise.  He took a mouthful of his eggs, although in reality his appetite had waned significantly.

There was another tense pause.  Pansy and Nott were leaning over Malfoy's shoulder, trying to see what the fuss was about.  Harry continued to eat the last scraps of egg and toast on his plate, pretending to take no notice of them.  Despite his airy assurance to Blaise he wasn't entirely confident that Malfoy wouldn't try to start something, although it was unlikely with such a large audience and the entire staff complement at the high table.

Then Pansy broke the silence with a tiny gasp of outrage.  "He can't do that!"

"Of course he can!" Malfoy snapped back.  He looked furious and he folded the newspaper up with sharp, vicious movements.  He all but threw it across the table at Blaise.  "He's her _paterfamilias_ \- he can do what he likes."  His eyes fixed on Harry venomously.

"What do you care?" Harry asked softly, answering the unspoken challenge in them.  "You keep telling us all what a noble and upstanding family you come from.  Why would any of your relatives care what happens to someone like her?  Isn't she an embarrassment to you?"

"Like Zabini said, Potter - blood is blood."  Malfoy shoved his plate away almost untouched, and began to gather up his things with sharp jerky movements.  "Not that I'd expect a _Mudblood_ like you to understand anything important or decent in our world."

"I understand that what a lot of First Families consider _important and decent_ is a pretty long way off what the rest of the world thinks is decent and right," Harry retorted.  "It's a funny thing, Malfoy, but most of us don't think that murdering someone is clever.  But we've had this conversation before and I reckon you didn't listen to me then, so why should I waste my time on you?"

Malfoy put his bag down very slowly and leaned across the table until there was less than a foot between his and Harry's faces.  Harry noticed that he was sweating.

"One day, Potter, I'm going to _kill_ you," he said quietly and with an intensity that surprised Harry, even though he didn't believe it for a moment.  The response seemed completely disproportionate to the cause.

He made himself smile sweetly.  "Someone a lot smarter and more powerful than you has first dibs on me, Malfoy.  You wouldn't want to upset him, would you?  Now either sit down again or piss off – or do you want me to do something embarrassing to you in front of the whole school and the headmaster as well?"

"You wouldn't dare!"  That was Pansy, not Malfoy.

"Based on what evidence?" Harry retorted, not taking his eyes off Malfoy. 

"I'd sit down if I were you, Malfoy," Blaise said, his voice tense.  "Professor Snape's watching."

Malfoy sat down slowly.  He didn't take his eyes off Harry.  "That's one professor you don't own, Potter," he said, and some of the tension in his body seemed to ease as his lips curled.

Harry shrugged.  "I don't own anyone.  And no one really owns a snake unless the snake lets them.  You done, Zabini?  We're going to be late for Transfiguration."

Blaise waited until they were outside the Professor McGonagall's classroom before he spoke again.

"Potter, I'm not saying Malfoy is right but you have to realise that in the First Families blood ties are very - "

"No disrespect intended, Zabini," Harry interrupted him shortly, "but don't give me that "blood is blood" crap again.  Bellatrix Lestrange tortured two people into insanity and something she said to me once makes me think she was there when my parents were murdered.  If you want me to believe that losing her right to a share in the Black fortune is a tragedy by comparison, you've got bats in your attic.  Disinheriting her is just a precaution.  If it's left to me it'll never become an issue, just like sending her back to Azkaban won't."

"And what good will that do?" Blaise demanded.

Harry stared at him incredulously.  "She's a self-confessed, unrepentant Death Eater who tortured and murdered people during the last war.  She's probably doing the same thing _now_ if only the _Prophet_ could bring itself to tell us all the truth!  What do you _want_ to happen to her?"

Blaise shrugged.  "Give her to the Dementors this time?"

Harry froze for a second, remembering a flock of Dementors descending upon Sirius at the edge of the lake in a frenzy, and the intense, mind-fogging horror that accompanied them.  The scent of cold, spectral anticipation, of an unappeasable hunger ....

"No," he said after a moment, and he turned away.

"Why not?"

"Because they're ...."  Harry stopped and took a careful breath.  "Look, you wouldn't understand."

"You're not turning into a Gryffindor about it, are you?"

Harry looked at him sharply again.  There was no trace of humour on Blaise's face, only that cool, measuring look that was becoming very familiar. 

"That's a joke, right?" he said anyway.  "Try asking someone like Longbottom or Finnigan if I should be bunking with them!"

Blaise snorted and let the matter drop.

The question disturbed Harry all through Transfiguration, though, and more so than on the occasions in the past when Sirius had nagged him for being in the "wrong" house. 

After he'd pulled Ginny Weasley out of the Chamber of Secrets at the end of his second year, Harry had handed Godric Gryffindor's sword back to Professor Dumbledore and asked him how he had been able to pull it out of the Sorting Hat. 

The Headmaster had given him an odd little smile and said, "It's an curious thing, my boy, but it is generally believed that only a true Gryffindor could do that."

"But I'm a Slytherin," Harry had said, perplexed and even a little offended.

"Well, quite so.  But it is our choices that make us who we are, you know.  And sometimes the reasons for those choices can be misunderstood, even by ourselves."

 _I am not a Gryffindor,_ he thought fiercely.  But sometimes he felt that he wasn't much of a Slytherin either.

 

xXx

 

Monday was the day when Harry began to feel the first real effects of Dumbledore's decision to make him responsible for his fellow Slytherins.  He suspected that Snape had said something about it to the prefects; at any rate, he began to find himself being waylaid by younger members of the house who wanted help or to complain about something. 

This was irritating, and the more so because he knew many of the things they were bringing to him should have been taken to the prefects whose responsibility it really was.  It didn't take a genius to work out that the prefects in question were taking advantage, but Harry wasn't in a good position to complain about it.  Besides, complaining wasn't his style.  There were several ways he could deal with this, starting with reporting the culprits to the Head Boy or Head Girl, but Harry was still a Slytherin and while snitching on each other within the house was a carefully-honed and cherished tradition, taking it outside the house was not done.

It would be more satisfying to deal with the prefects personally, and while he was helping them with their dormitory disputes and anxieties over late homework the First and Second Year kids were touchingly willing to tell Harry all sorts of interesting things that they had seen or overheard.  Blackmail material was always useful, although Harry generally preferred a more direct approach as blackmail had a habit of backfiring upon the perpetrator. 

On Wednesday evening he was still contemplating ways and means of getting back at the guilty parties when Leonora Yaxley, one of the Fifth Year prefects, approached him at the common room table he'd staked out for his Transfiguration homework.  Harry looked up rather impatiently when she positioned herself next to his chair – he was in the middle of some fairly tricky calculations and transfigurative mathematics were not his strong point – but schooled his face to bland politeness when he realised who it was.  Yaxley was a member of one of the First Families and, significantly, one of the Slytherins who had chosen to quietly offer him support.  She had been present at the coffee shop meeting at the end of the summer holiday and had fallen in on Harry's side during the common room brawl with Malfoy.  It behoved Harry to maintain civil relations with her, so he raised his brows at her and waited for her to speak.

"Some of the Third Years have asked if they can have a word with you, Potter," she said politely.

This was Slytherin etiquette, which dictated that the lower years didn't directly approach the seniors in the common room in the evenings, but arranged to speak to them via their designated prefect and waited to be summoned.  In the case of the 'king' the rule was even stronger.

Harry felt a strong surge of aggravation.  At this rate he was never going to get any of his homework done, let alone any of his other work, unless he started spending all of his free time somewhere where the other Slytherins couldn't find him.  And as Blaise had already made amply clear on a number of occasions, he simply couldn't afford to do that if he wanted to stay in control of the house.  Besides, Dumbledore had made it equally clear that his housemates were his responsibility whether he liked it or not and Harry suspected that avoiding them would end with some unspecified retribution being visited upon him by either the Headmaster or Professor Snape.  He smothered a snarl.

"What do they want that you can't help them with, Yaxley?" he asked rather pointedly.

"I believe you have something they want to borrow," she replied, her tone rather stiff.

Harry's brows went up.  _That_ was unexpected.  He peered around the girl and saw three Third Year boys staring back at him, wary but hopeful.  He wondered what on earth they thought he had that he would be willing to lend them.  Then he recognised one of them as Donald Haggerly, one of the exceedingly rare Muggleborn Slytherins, and thought he knew what was going on.  Halfbloods and Muggleborns got picked on worse than anyone else in the entire house because of their less than pure wizard blood, and generally only succeeded in earning respect through sheer bloody-mindedness.  Haggerly's dorm-mates had probably put him up to this.

"Fine," he said, annoyed, "but tell them that if it turns out to be a stupid bet, they'll all regret it."

Apparently this didn't deter them, for moments later the three younger boys were gathered at the end of his table.  Harry looked at them and waited.

Haggerly cleared his throat, shot a look at the other two, and said, "There's this rumour that you've got a spider in your dorm.  A really big one."

"What about it?" Harry asked, unimpressed.  If they wanted to borrow Phoebe for something, there was going to be trouble.

Haggerly eyed him nervously for a moment.  He was a big kid for his age, dark haired, bulky and rather pimply.  Rumour had it that he could hold his own in a fight, magical or otherwise; he undoubtedly needed to.

"I keep Tarantulas at home," he explained.  He jerked his chin at the other two.  "They don't believe me and they reckon I'll run if I see your spider.  So can we see it?  And could I maybe hold it?"

Harry folded his arms.  "It's a Rat-Eating Funnel Spider, Haggerly.  It's not like a Tarantula – it's three times the size and if it bites you you'll die because there's no anti-venom."  This wasn't true of Phoebe, of course, but Haggerly didn't need to know that.  "She's used to being handled by one person – _me_." 

Haggerly shrugged.  "I don't mind," he bragged.

"I do," Harry retorted.

"Could we just look at it then?"

Harry looked at him and an interesting idea began to dawn.  Haggerly was thirteen, perhaps pushing fourteen, and Harry remembered his own third year as being the year when suddenly things started to seem possible.  Third year had been the year he'd acquired the Marauder's Map from the Weasley twins while they showered after Quidditch practice; third year had been the year he learned the Patronus Charm and rescued Sirius from the Dementors.  And Haggerly was Muggleborn, which might make him more amenable to earning a place of trust with the man who ruled Slytherin while at the same time not being particularly fussed about dormitory loyalties.

"What's it worth?" Harry asked.

Haggerly's previous wariness returned.  "I don't know – what do you want?"

Harry smiled blandly.  "I don't know yet.  Maybe I'll need something from you later – _all_ of you."

They were Slytherins, of course, and had known before they approached him that it nothing was had for free.  After only a moment's hesitation they all agreed to an unspecified favour at a later date.

"Good."  Harry pulled out his wand and flicked it over his homework, which rolled itself up and packed itself away in his bag.  "Come on then."

 

xXx

 

Roping in Haggerly and his friends as potential operatives to use against his fellow Slytherins gave Harry's morale a little boost.  It wasn't that he _had_ to make use of them, even against the prefects who were being so disobliging; it was just that they were there in case of the need.  It was always reassuring to know what weapons he had in his arsenal.  Of course, it helped that there was a good chance the three Third Years would be willing assistants.  Phoebe - and Harry's nonchalant handling of her - had made a significant impression upon them.

He tried to tell himself that the pleasing little inner glow he felt had nothing to do with knowing that he'd done as numerous people (like Sirius) wanted and bought support with something other than fear.

It wasn't true, of course, but he could fool himself just this once.

 

xXx

 

"I'm hearing good things about you," Hermione commented, as she wrestled with the lock on the door of the storage room where Remus Lupin's old printing press was kept.  Her expression suggested that she was approving of Harry's actions somewhat against her own wishes, so her smile had a rather condescending edge to it.

"Thanks for warning me," Harry retorted.  "I'll work harder at being a complete shit, shall I?"

Ron gave him a friendly shove before Hermione could come up with a response.  "Give it a rest, you berk!"

Harry snorted.  "What am I supposed to have done or not done?" he demanded of her.

Hermione raised a mocking brow.  "Giving tutorials to the Slytherin First Years?  Making the older boys stop stealing their sweets and books?  Acting as an _inspirational_ _role model_ to the Quidditch team?"

"Sounds like someone's telling lies," Harry said.  "I threatened to knock Barrington's block off if he turned up pissed for practice again, if that's what you mean, and yeah - I gave the whole Fifth Year dorm a bollocking for brewing moonshine in the bathroom, but only because Snape's got a nose for a brew and it'd have been worse if he'd caught them.  But I never told Crabbe and Goyle they couldn't nick other people's sweets.  You don't pinch gear from your own housemates, that's all; it's bad form."

"Were they really brewing moonshine?" Ron asked, grinning. 

"Yeah, with Shrivelfigs and bananas."  Harry shook his head.  "It was pretty nasty stuff, although it cleaned the bogs beautifully when I tossed it out."

Ron began to laugh, but Hermione looked outraged.

"It's not funny, Ron!"

"Yes it is!  Why didn't we think of that?  Seamus is always nagging on about how weak Butterbeer is."

"Ronald Weasley - !"

"Give it a rest, Granger, you sound like his mother," Harry told her, exasperated.  "We're blokes, we're seventeen and we're going to do stuff - you can't stop us!  As for the lower years, I'm doing what I have to do to keep them all in line, okay?  Don't try to make it something it's not.  For your information it's a bloody pain in the arse, since some of them are doing stuff just to wind me up.  But don't worry, they'll suffer for it when they're not expecting it."

For a moment it looked like Hermione might get angry.  But she took a deep breath and smiled at Harry instead.

"Tony's very impressed with you," she told him, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Ron suddenly stopped laughing.

"He is?" Harry said suspiciously.

"Oh yes.  He thinks if you can manage this when you want to, it's a shame you weren't made a prefect in Zabini's place."

"I'll bet," Ron said, annoyed.  "Hasn't Goldstein got anything better to do than watch Harry?"

"Be fair - I can only manage one riot a month," Harry quipped, but he was giving the redhead an interested look.  "You're not jealous, are you?"

Ron glowered, and Harry grinned.

"I think that's the best thing I've heard since we came back to school!"

"You're an arse, Potter," Ron grumbled.

"Better leave my arse out of it in mixed company, mate."

"Oh, _please,_ " Hermione huffed impatiently.  "If you're going to flirt find somewhere else to do it.  Otherwise, let's get this printer running before it's curfew and I have to take points from both of you for being out late!"

"I don't know why you need my help," Harry said, as they began to unshroud the printing press and run through the test sequences Remus had taught them the previous term.  "You probably remember all this better than I do."

"Don't be too sure of that," Hermione said.  "I've had so many other things to think about since Professor Lupin showed us."

"And I haven't?"

"Do we have to have this argument again?" Ron asked.  "Let's just do it."

"Are you going to run the newspaper on your own?" Harry asked Hermione, frowning.

"No, but I need to talk to some people about helping me with it."  Hermione sighed.  "Ginny was going to, but she backed out when I asked her this morning.  She's been awfully quiet this week ...."

Harry shot a quick look at Ron.  "Did you talk to her?"

"No.  Let it go," Ron said, very quietly.  He didn't raise his eyes from the bit of machinery he was oiling.

"Well, what's going to happen?  She obviously hasn't gone to McGonagall yet, but - "

"Let it go," Ron interrupted more loudly.  "Please."

Harry glanced at Hermione.  She looked equally concerned.

"I don't think I _can_ let it go, you know?" he said carefully, after a moment or two.  "I'm not asking for details, I just want to know that I'm not going to be tripping over her again the next time I have a private lesson or something.  I know you probably won't believe me when I say this, but I don't really like having to hex people.  Especially not my best friend's sister."  Hermione snorted disparagingly, and Harry beat down a surge of aggravation at her.  "On the other hand, hexing _you_ , Granger …."

"You stole her underwear, Potter!  I refuse to believe that was the best solution you could come up with at short notice."

"If I'm the kind of pervert you think I am, why did I hand them over to you?" Harry demanded, annoyed.  "I could have just dumped them somewhere and never said a word!  If I'd been Malfoy – or any number of other blokes – I'd have hung onto them and hung 'em up like banners at the first Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match!  I could have sold or traded them, even, and I wouldn't be the first bloke to do it by a long shot."

It was interesting to see her eyes almost popping out with horror at this piece of information.  To Harry's amusement Ron wore a very similar expression, although he looked uneasily fascinated rather than dismayed.

"What sort of person _buys_ someone else's underwear?" Hermione demanded, her nostrils flaring with distaste.

Harry shrugged.  "Theo Nott's well-known in Slytherin for pinching and selling skivvies – he specialises in the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw girls' knickers."

Hermione was rendered utterly speechless by this, so it was left to a huge-eyed Ron to ask "How do you know that?"

Harry shrugged, wondering if his answer would trigger another, different sort of row.  "I hexed the crap out of him last year for pinching Amy Snodgrass's underwear and trying to sell it to Seamus Finnigan."

"That – that is utterly _depraved_ ," Hermione said, struggling to get the words out around her outrage.

Harry gave her an old-fashioned look.  "Well yeah, that's my _point_ , Granger.  Although if you knew how many blokes are willing to buy stuff off him, I reckon you'd drop dead of a stroke.  There's Finnigan for a start – do you want me to make a list?"

"No!"  Hermione took a couple of quick, deep breaths, trying to calm herself.  "Seamus Finnigan!" she said in a tone of utmost loathing.  "Oh, I'll settle him, the revolting little … _toe-rag!_   He asked me out last term!"

"Better check your knicker drawer," Harry said sardonically.  "Maybe he had a free sample first."

Apparently his reflexes weren't quite fast enough yet.  Hermione's hand flashed out and seized the front of his robes before he could dodge her, and the close-up he got of her blazing eyes was more intimidating than he expected.

"You tell Nott from me, Potter," she said through gritted teeth, "that if I hear the merest _whisper_ of a rumour that he's selling stolen underwear to _anyone_ – or if I hear any girl from any of the houses complaining of stolen underwear – I won't wait to find evidence.  He'll spend the rest of the school year with his testicles tied up in every freezing and twisting charm I can find a reference to in the library!  Is that clear?"

Harry heard Ron make a rather strangulated _meep_ sound from somewhere behind him, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the Head Girl to check on his friend.  He tried a conciliatory smile.

"Want me to teach you the scabies spell?" he offered.

"Yes, please," Hermione said in the same deadly voice.

"Maybe when we've finished here then …."

"That would be convenient for me."  Hermione released him, took another deep breath and slowly seemed to recover her usual poise.  "Now, where were we?"

Harry wasn't sure if it was entirely safe to return to the original topic … but he needed to know, so he took the risk. 

"So what did you do about Ginny?" he asked Ron, keeping one eye warily on Hermione as he said it.

Ron cleared his throat and brushed half-heartedly at a smear of oil on his sleeve, avoiding their eyes again.

"I went to McGonagall," he said reluctantly.  "All right?"

"You did?"  Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or panic.  "Why did you do that?"

"She's a member of the Order of the Phoenix," Ron told him.  "We used to see her at Grimmauld Place all that summer we stayed there.  I didn't reckon Ginny would listen to anything Hermione or I said and I didn't think we could risk leaving it, so I figured McGonagall would know what to do."

"What did she say?" Hermione asked.  She looked astonished - and, Harry noticed, rather impressed by Ron's actions. 

Ron shrugged.  "Not much.  She said not to worry because she'd handle it."

"But what could she do?" Harry pressed.

"I don't know, mate, but I reckon whatever it was worked.  Gin's keeping herself to herself now."

Now Hermione looked anxious.  "You - you don't think she could have Obliviated Ginny, do you?"

"No," Ron said at once, and even Harry breathed a little easier at this.  "I asked her if that's what she'd do and she said she wouldn't because she couldn't make her forget everything about Harry's business.  It was too dangerous even to try.  But she didn't tell me what she would do ... and I reckon I don't want to know, so long as it works."

Harry eyed him thoughtfully for a moment or two.  Ron didn't look happy about any of this, and Harry supposed he couldn't blame his friend for that - his own experiences of family were rather different, but he dimly recognised that it couldn't have been pleasant for Ron to have to snitch on his sister to the Deputy Headmistress.  It wasn't something he understood, but he knew that when Ron said he loved Ginny regardless of how annoying she was, he meant it, just as he was completely sincere in expressing the same feelings about his brothers, despite being frequently frustrated and infuriated by the twins and Percy.

Part of him felt that he should be thanking Ron – after all, he'd taken this action for Harry's sake - but Harry clamped down on the impulse, knowing instinctively that it would be a bad thing to vocalise.  Better not to say anything.  He went back to wiping various parts of the machinery and making sure they were in working order, and the room was silent for a while.

"You want to get Dean involved with this newspaper," Ron said at length.  "He's dead good at drawing.  And Creevey'll take photos if you want, I'll bet."

"I know," Hermione replied.  "But it's the editorial side I'm more concerned about.  I need people to write for it."

"Then talk to Goldstein," Harry told her.  "This is the kind of stuff Ravenclaws live for, isn't it?"

"They aren't just swots, Harry," she pointed out dryly.  "Try to look beyond the cliché!"

Harry shrugged, and stifled the temptation to point out that not many people bothered to look beyond the cliché where Slytherins were concerned.

"How are the lessons with Flitwick going?" Ron asked, changing the subject.

"Pretty good.  The snake works brilliantly.  And he's started me on separating consciousness which is …."  Harry paused, then shrugged.  "It's a bit patchy, to be honest."

"It'll take time though, right?"

"So he says."

"And it is working a bit, so you're getting somewhere."

"What's your next project?" Hermione asked, looking interested.

"I don't know," Harry admitted.  "I've asked him and he says someone he knows – an Animator in Germany – has offered to send over some tests that they used to give to students when Animation was more common.  But they've got to be translated first."

"That sounds like a good idea.  You need to have something to judge your progress by."

Harry glanced at Ron, who rolled his eyes.  Trust Hermione to want more exams, not less.

"I'll have to take an exam before the Brotherhood of Master Animators will accept me as a novice member anyway," he commented, "but I can't do that until I've managed to separate consciousness properly.  Besides, Flitwick'll have to arrange for another senior member of the Brotherhood to invigilate the exam and I reckon he's a bit jumpy about that."

"Why?" Ron wanted to know.

"Because depending on who the invigilator is and how he feels about the Boy Who Lived, I could end up failing no matter how well I do," Harry replied, and he felt rather pleased with how level and indifferent his tone was as he said this.  "It could turn out to be someone a bit like Sirius's dad, or even someone who thinks Voldemort's an okay bloke, and then I'm up the spout.  But that's not my problem right now."

He finished tightening the final bolt on the press and stepped back.

"That's it.  Let's load it up with paper and ink and see what happens."

 

xXx

 

Hermione's titbit of information about Tony Goldstein being impressed annoyed Harry because he was sure neither the Head Boy nor the Head Girl knew just how much stress dealing with the Slytherins was putting him under.  He discovered that he could mostly keep the younger ones under control by assisting them, in a casual, off-handed way, with things like their homework and by showing a willingness to sort out their problems when it proved necessary.  Blaise stepped in and, with a little bit of 'motivation' from both him and Harry, managed to bring the prefects back into order fairly rapidly, which meant that the troublemakers in the upper years were being dealt with promptly by the proper agents.  The most difficult of the girls were being dealt with by Millicent Bulstrode and Leonora Yaxley – both volunteers in the cause, much to Harry's surprise.

That just left one or two self-proclaimed hard cases like Malfoy and his friends and a couple of difficult Fifth and Sixth Years.  The worst of the latter was Peter Lilywhite, much to Harry's aggravation.  He might be a brilliant Quidditch player – and Harry was the first person to acknowledge his prowess as a Chaser – but he appeared to have his own agenda quite apart from anything Malfoy was trying to foment, and he had discovered that Professor Snape was one of the few teachers prepared to fully enforce the Headmaster's diktat and punish Harry for the other Slytherins' transgressions.  Harry had already taken one detention for Lilywhite and had two more lined up for the weekend; he couldn't afford to keep losing his free time to cauldron scrubbing and bathroom cleaning, and had grimly decided that Quidditch practice that Saturday would include a private session behind the changing rooms that Lilywhite wouldn't forget in a hurry.

Malfoy was another matter.  So far Harry had received one half-hour detention with Professor McGonagall on his behalf, which Malfoy hadn't profited from much since the Deputy Headmistress was fairer than Professor Snape and had made him take the detention too besides setting him a particularly nasty essay which Harry was pointedly excused from.  This seemed to make Malfoy think twice about how and when he would make trouble in class.

Harry wasn't fooled, though.  They both had Potions after lunch on Friday, and it was one of the single lessons which were always more frenetic as Snape seemed to feel that there was no excuse for them to do less work in one lesson than they did in a double.

He arrived for the lesson a few minutes early and spent the time looking over the recipe for the work they would be carrying out, which was the preparation of a base mixture to be used in a more complicated potion they would brew on the following Tuesday.  The rest of the class trickled up to the door more slowly and Harry suddenly realised that he was standing next to Tony Goldstein.

"I hear you're having problems with some of the other Slytherins," Tony said very softly, under the cover of rummaging in his own book bag.

"None of your business," Harry replied shortly.

"Lilywhite's becoming a serious pain in the rear."

"And your point is?"

"Oh, nothing.  But when he starts making trouble among the Ravenclaws, I start taking notice, that's all."

"Good for you," Harry muttered, turning a page.  He didn't like the look of the base mixture _or_ the potion they would make out of it; he had no trouble understanding the instructions but both mixtures were volatile.  Just the kind of thing Malfoy would enjoy using to make trouble in class.

"And I have the oddest feeling that Malfoy is planning something," Tony continued dryly.

"And that's new?"

"You can handle Parkinson with no problems though, can't you?"

Harry looked up and frowned.  "What?"

Silence fell as Professor Snape appeared in the doorway of the laboratory and Harry quickly closed his book, slipping it back into his bag.  At a gesture from the Potions Master, they all filed quietly into the room and made for their usual benches.

It wasn't until Harry heard a scuffle and an indignant protest that he realised it wasn't Tony standing in his usual place next to him.  It was Pansy Parkinson and she looked furious.

Tony had taken her place next to an equally affronted-looking Malfoy.

"Is something the matter, Miss Parkinson?" Snape demanded, sweeping down the middle of the room.

Pansy opened her mouth to complain and Harry's hand shot out, savagely pinching the fleshy part of her arm just above the elbow.  Her mouth shut again as her face screwed up with the effort not to yelp.

Snape looked at the two of them narrowly, then turned to study Malfoy and Tony.  He frowned.

"Ten points from Slytherin, Mr. Potter – "

Harry controlled his face with an effort.

" – For making trouble.  Again."

It was a good thing for Slytherin that Professor Flitwick rewarded Harry for his efforts in Animation by giving him points; it helped make up for the deficit in other areas.  All the same, Harry decided that Tony needed a good slapping as much as Peter Lilywhite did.  He wondered what punishment he would get for laying into the Head Boy.  As the lesson progressed, though, and he realised just how much of a straightjacket it placed on Malfoy to have the Head Boy as his Potions partner, his temper cooled a little. 

Only a little, though, as it didn't best please him to have to correct Pansy's incessant mistakes during the preparation of the base mixture.  He wondered how on earth she'd managed to get into the NEWT class in the first place.

More to the point, he wondered just what Tony thought he was playing at.

 

xXx

 

Quidditch practice for the Slytherins was on the Saturday afternoon.  Harry spent most of the morning tucked into a study carrel in the library, trying to catch up with the homework that was rapidly piling up thanks to his demanding housemates.  He emerged to eat a light lunch (and settle an acrimonious dispute between two Second Year Slytherin girls about the ownership of a puffskein, much in the manner of Solomon determining the parentage of a baby), then grabbed his broom and kit and headed for the Quidditch pitch.

On his way out of the dormitory he ran into Blaise.

"You won't have any trouble from Malfoy today, at least," the dark boy said with a slight grin.  "He's been given a second warning by Professor Snape about not going near the pitch."

"Really?"  Harry was mildly surprised.  "What happened?"

"I think it must be because Goldstein has it in for him – all the prefects got a warning last night to keep a sharp eye out for Malfoy hanging around."

"Why would Goldstein have it in for Malfoy?" Harry asked, although he thought he could guess that.

Blaise shrugged.  "You tell me.  I'll see you later."

"No you won't," Harry said, transferring his broom from one shoulder to the other.  "I've got another detention."

"You need to settle Lilywhite," Blaise advised him.

"I'm going to, don't worry."

That was on Harry's mind all through the practice session, although he did his best not to let it interfere with the game.  The new players were coming on well, even the reserves, and he was particularly pleased with the second Seeker who was a Third Year girl called Rosamund Melchett.  She was small, light and fast, and someone in her family had decided to celebrate her new position on the team by gifting her with a new Cleansweep broom.  If one of his yearly disasters occurred and Harry was taken out of action, he felt reasonably confident that the team would be able to continue playing creditably.

He just wished that being taken out of action wasn't something that sprang so readily to mind or that he felt so resigned to it.  That couldn't be normal for anyone, even him.

After two hours in the air, Harry signalled for the team to head for the ground, where he went over the game for nearly half an hour, picking apart their play.  Then he sent them all off to the changing rooms.  Normally a fast changer himself, he lingered until the rest were done and followed them out of the building, catching Peter Lilywhite at the last minute and holding him back.

"Behind the block," he told the Sixth Year boy grimly.

"But I have a Charms Club meeting – "

"You're going to be late."

"You don't scare me, Potter," Lilywhite said, his lip curling.  He was blond and blue-eyed with milky-white skin; Lilywhite had Danish blood somewhere in his family tree, giving him a slightly bleached look that sat oddly with the ruddy glow of recent exercise.  His pale eyes were as cold as Malfoy's and twice as suspicious.

"Frankly I don't care," Harry told him coolly.  "I don't give a shit if you like me or loathe me, Lilywhite.  I don't care if I make you crap yourself or pee your pants laughing.  What I care about is the time you waste – _my_ time.  And I want to know what you're going to do about that."

Lilywhite seemed unimpressed.  "If you're expecting me to break my heart over you, forget it."

Harry sighed.  "Don't make me repeat myself in words of one syllable, dickhead."

Lilywhite gave him a nasty smile.  "In words of one syllable, Potter – _live with it._ "

 _Pity_ , Harry thought, but before he could take the thought any further he heard the crunch of gravel on the pathway behind them.

"Afternoon, lads," an unfamiliar voice said.

Harry's wand was in his hand even as he turned, but what he saw made him blink.  There was a group of around a dozen boys standing on the pathway, a mixed bunch most of whom he didn't recognise.  Not Slytherins, then.

And not a good sign, either.

"Easy Potter," one of them said, a dark-haired youth who looked vaguely familiar.  "It's not you we're here for."

"Really."  Harry's eyes ran over them, pegging the few he did know.  Creevey of Gryffindor … Corner of Ravenclaw … a boy he recognised from the new Hufflepuff team line-up.  "You know, somehow that just doesn't reassure me.  Must be something to do with there being so many of you."

"It's Lilywhite we're after," Corner said in an unfriendly voice. 

"Looks like you really know how to make friends and influence people, Lilywhite," Harry remarked, not taking his eyes off the others.  "Why am I not surprised?"

"You can go, Potter," Creevey said, and it sounded like he really meant it.  None of his companions contradicted him anyway.

The offer was almost tempting, but house loyalty held firm in Harry despite his own intention to thrash Peter Lilywhite soundly. 

"I don't think so, Creevey."

"He means it," the first speaker said.  "Leave, Potter.  No one will stop you – we just want Lilywhite here."

"Sorry.  Can't do that."  Harry gave him a patently false smile.  "I like six to one better than twelve to one, don't you?"

"Then don't say we didn't – "

Harry hexed him before he could finish the sentence.

 

xXx

 

"Whilst it's not unusual for a man of my age to experience déjà vu, Harry, in this particular instance I can only view it with some misgiving," Professor Dumbledore said grimly.

Harry wondered if it was worth trying to explain what had really happened, but if Professors Snape, McGonagall and Sprout were all present then presumably at least some of the background to the incident was already known.  He wondered where Professor Flitwick was, given that most of the gang he and Lilywhite had faced had turned out to be Ravenclaws, but really it didn't make a great deal of difference.  Once again he was taking responsibility for Slytherin and once again he was facing an angry Headmaster, and after four short but intense weeks of mayhem Harry was seriously beginning to think that his days at the school were numbered.

He wondered if an apology would have any effect.

"I'm sorry, Professor, but I wasn't about to leave Lilywhite to face twelve of them on his own," he said reluctantly.

"Thirteen of them as it happens, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall said very dryly.

"I wasn't really counting, Ma'am," Harry retorted before he could stop himself.  For a wonder there was no rebuke from any of the assembled professors.

"One wonders what the two of you were doing behind the changing block in the first place, Potter," Snape said. 

His insinuating tone brought Harry's hackles up, but he managed to keep his temper - and his tongue - under control that time.  Snape could think what he liked, the dirty-minded git.

Dumbledore was looking at him over the top of his spectacles.  "Professor Snape has asked a valid question, Harry."

"I needed to have a private word with Lilywhite, Sir," Harry said.  That was as much as he was prepared to say.

"Behind the Quidditch changing block, Harry?  Was it a question about his performance on the pitch?"

Harry looked at the Headmaster.  He didn't particularly like lying to him, not least because he was sure that Dumbledore always knew when it was a lie, even if he didn't necessarily challenge Harry about it.

"No, Sir," he said reluctantly.

"I see."

Harry had no doubt at all that he did.

"And Mr. Lilywhite's assailants, did they explain why they wished to ... speak to him in private?"

"No, Sir."  That had been puzzling Harry too, although he was perfectly willing to believe that Lilywhite had pissed them all off for some unspecified reason.  The puzzle was how such a disparate group of people from three different houses had banded together to deal with Lilywhite in the first place. 

For a moment - just the barest shaving of a second - Harry saw a look of terrible exhaustion flash across Dumbledore's face.  Then it was gone again, leaving Harry feeling unaccountably guilty and wondering if he'd even really seen it.

A firm tap on the Headmaster's office door brought any further questions to a halt unspoken.

"Come in," Dumbledore said.

It was Professor Flitwick, looking unusually ruffled and upset, and bringing with him Tony Goldstein. 

A light bulb lit up in Harry's head as soon as he saw the Head Boy.

"Mr. Goldstein has something he wishes to say, Headmaster," Professor Flitwick said.

Dumbledore's brows went up.  "Indeed?  Mr. Goldstein?"

Tony took a deep breath, glanced quickly at Harry, and stepped forward resolutely.

"Professor, the incident outside the changing block wasn't Potter's fault.  It was mine."

Harry couldn't help it; he rolled his eyes.  He thought he could suddenly see everything, and if it wasn't just like a bloody smart-arse Ravenclaw to bollocks up a simple idea by trying to be clever.  If the Ravenclaws were so pissed off with Lilywhite, why hadn't they just waylaid him somewhere quiet - _not_ outside the Slytherin changing block straight after a practice, how bloody stupid was that - and duffed him up?  But no! they had to get the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs involved, instead of each house dealing with its own problems separately, and then challenge Lilywhite when he wasn't on his own, and now Tony was making a complete spaz of himself by claiming responsibility.  He'd be lucky if he kept his position as Head Boy after confessing to a balls-up like this, and even Harry wasn't quite vengeful enough to wish something like that on Tony, even if Tony _had_ landed him with Pansy Parkinson all through Potions the previous day.

And now Professor Flitwick was upset, and Harry didn't want to be remotely involved in anything that upset the little Charms professor because right now they were getting on like a house on fire and Harry needed all the allies among the teachers that he could get.

Ravenclaws - all of the brains, none of the common sense.

Dumbledore was giving Tony a familiar look over the top of his spectacles.

"Indeed, Mr. Goldstein?  You distress me inordinately.  Continue!"

"Peter Lilywhite has been causing a lot of trouble lately, Professor, and it didn't seem to matter to him when the prefects took points or he got detentions. We were all getting a bit fed up of it, so I ... had a meeting with some of the people he was annoying the most and ... arranged to take some direct action."

Silence.  Everyone looked at Tony as though he'd grown an extra head, Harry included.

"I see," Dumbledore said eventually, and once again Harry got the impression that he did indeed _see,_ although what the Headmaster was seeing this time escaped him.  "Did it not occur to you, Mr. Goldstein, that the proper course of action was to speak to one of the professors - such as Mr. Lilywhite's head of house, Professor Snape?"

"Yes, Professor," Tony said, looking uncomfortable.

"Then why didn't you, Mr. Goldstein?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

There was another long pause.  Harry wondered if Tony had been reluctant to approach Snape because he thought he wouldn't do anything about it.  He could understand that assumption personally, although he didn't think anyone else in the room would and he still didn't see why Tony had reacted the way he had.  If it _had_ been Tony and not someone else whom the Head Boy was covering for.  But why hadn't he just gone to Flitwick or McGonagall?

"Mr. Goldstein?" Dumbledore prompted him.

"Most of the people I spoke to thought that Lilywhite was acting up because he knew Potter would get his detentions," Tony said finally.  "All of the Slytherins and quite a few people from the other houses know that Potter has been made responsible for what the Slytherins do.  That didn't seem fair to some of us, but we thought if we complained it might just make things worse for Potter and Lilywhite would still act up."

They'd definitely decided Snape would be a problem, Harry thought.  Then he registered what Tony had really said and felt a surge of exasperation.  He didn't need the bloody Head Boy stepping in to deal with his problems for him!  If only Tony had kept his big nose out of Harry's business, he could have beaten up Lilywhite in private and the whole thing would have been sorted out without all this fuss!

"Good heavens!" Professor Sprout said, looking astonished.  "Are you telling us, Mr. Goldstein, that the houses _cooperated_ to take this action against a single member of Slytherin?"

"Not exactly, Professor."  Tony looked more uncomfortable than ever.  "Just a few people, really."

"It seems remarkable, Goldstein, under the circumstances, that you weren't present to supervise this lynch mob yourself," Professor Snape remarked, in a tone so astringent that Harry nearly winced.

"I would have been, Professor," Tony said, straightening up a little and looking directly at the Potions Master, "but they didn't want me there."

"Headmaster," Professor McGonagall said, "this is quite extraordinary …."

"I am deeply mortified, Headmaster," Professor Flitwick said, looking distressed.  "As I have already informed Mr. Goldstein, his actions have brought the reputation of his entire house into disrepute and if you wish to remove him from the position of trust that he has so grossly abused, you will have my fullest support."

Professor Dumbledore seemed to be sunk deep in thought for several minutes.  When he finally looked up, however, Harry couldn't help thinking that the look of exhaustion had been lifted from his face and wondered why.

"I do not believe that I have ever before punished a pupil for expressing loyalty to another pupil in what is essentially a just cause," he said, "nor yet have I wilfully discouraged inter-house cooperation when it manifests itself against all the odds."  Before the other professors could react, he added, "The means of expressing that loyalty is another matter, of course, and mob action, especially against a single pupil, must never be encouraged or condoned. 

"I deprecate your actions, Mr. Goldstein, even though I understand your motivations perhaps a little better than you understand them yourself.  Professor Flitwick is quite correct in saying that an appropriate punishment should be removal from your current position of responsibility.  Did I not think that such a move would be ... counterproductive ... and, to a certain extent, even unjust, I should do so.  But you must understand that neither can I allow you to go unpunished."

Tony swallowed, but reached up and unpinned his Head Boy's badge from the lapel of his robe.  He stepped forward and went to put it on the desk in front of Dumbledore, but the Headmaster forestalled him by catching his hand and closing his fingers over the badge.

"Professor, I knew that I'd probably have to resign when I did it," Tony said, confused.

"Mr. Goldstein, up to this point your conduct has been irreproachable," Professor Dumbledore told him firmly, "and I believe there have been enough riots and mass action on the part of the pupils of this school for one term.  I have no desire to add an organised protest by Ravenclaw House to the tally.  I can assure you that you shall indeed be punished.

"Those who attacked Mr. Lilywhite, and somewhat coincidentally Mr. Potter, will be serving a series of detentions according the magnitude of their involvement in the incident and its conception.  You will serve each and every one of those detentions with the culprits, and in addition you will serve a detention upon your own count with each of the heads of the houses involved."

All of them, in other words.

"And Mr. Goldstein," Dumbledore added, his tone suddenly becoming a great deal sterner, "do not allow anything like this to happen again.  It is neither the place nor the duty of the Head Boy or Head Girl to usurp the authority of the professors of this school, nor to make assumptions as to the probable response of those professors in any given situation.  Should you have concerns over the behaviour of other pupils above and beyond that which you and the prefects may control, in future you must speak to the appropriate head of house.  It is not acceptable for you to organise action on the part of the student body which you and they know full well to be in breach of school rules, and should it come to light that you have done so I can and will strip you of your position as Head Boy in addition to any other punishment which the rules and situation may dictate.  Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Headmaster."

"Very well.  You may go."

Tony hesitated, then stepped back and bowed.  He left the room quickly.

Dumbledore stood up.  "Professors, this affair would appear to be concluded.  I shall leave it to you to undertake the appropriate measures against the culprits in this case - including, Professor Snape, Mr. Lilywhite whom it would seem requires some timely attitude adjustment."

Snape's eyes were hooded.  "And Potter?"

The Headmaster barely glanced at Harry.  "It would appear that Mr. Potter and I need to have a conversation about this matter.  I shall speak to you about it later, Professor."

This sounded ominous to Harry, but when the four house heads had departed he found himself being studied by Professor Dumbledore, who looked rather thoughtful.

"Well Harry?" he said at length.

"Professor?" Harry asked nervously.

"It would appear that you are acquiring champions," the Headmaster said almost gently.

"Goldstein?  I didn't know what he was planning, Professor."

"No, that much was obvious.  Indeed, I believe that Mr. Goldstein intended it that way.  Why did you defend Mr. Lilywhite, Harry?"

"He's a Slytherin," Harry said, perplexed, "and twelve against one is rotten odds."

"You prefer one against one, I would imagine," Dumbledore remarked, giving him a knowing look.

Harry didn't pretend not to understand him.  "That's different."

"Indeed.  One cannot argue that description."  The Headmaster sighed softly.  "I believe that I may be about to throw good advice to the four winds but - Harry, has it not occurred to you that Mr. Goldstein had his reasons for what he did today?"

Harry shrugged.  "Of course, Sir, but that's his problem.  Like I said, he didn't tell me what he was going to do."

"And an explanation doesn't suggest itself to you?"

One did, but it wasn't one Harry wanted to think about, let alone share with the Headmaster.  He shrugged again.

Dumbledore looked rather sad.  "Harry ... I wish that you could find it within yourself to accept the friendships that are offered to you, rather than so determinedly rejecting them at every turn.  Your life could be so much richer."

 

xXx

 

Harry spent most of Sunday serving the last of his detentions for Peter Lilywhite and trying (yet again) to catch up with all his homework.  He half-hoped to see Ron at some point, but had no opportunity to send him a message and received none from the Gryffindor either.  He spent nearly half an hour sulking about this in the bath later that evening, and was generally inclined to feel morose about his life as he climbed into bed and pulled the curtains.

He was just thinking of putting out his light when his blankets rippled and bulged and Rosebud crawled out from beneath them with a message tucked into her collar.

 

 _Hey mate.  Are you okay?  I'm not ignoring you, you know, it's just that there's a rumour going around that you're up to your eyeballs in crap at the moment and I thought you'd prefer to deal with some of it today._

 _Hermione's roped me into helping her and Neville run off some flyers for the newspaper on Wednesday - want to meet up there?  We could slope off after a while, it's not like they'll really need us._

 _I miss you.  Be careful, eh?  No more taking detentions for pillocks like Lilywhite if you can help it._

 _R._

 

Wednesday ....  Harry thought he could survive until then.

 

xXx

 

Monday was the Full Moon.  Harry didn't know why he should be more aware of it than usual, but he found himself feeling tense and anxious all day, wondering how Remus was coping and whether it would be a bad one.  He kept himself to himself throughout Transfiguration and Herbology, spent his free period in another apparently fruitless Legilimancy lesson with Professor Dumbledore, and all but barricaded himself into a corner of the common room that evening to work on his homework, silently daring anyone to interrupt him.  For a wonder no one did.

He spent a restless night filled with unpleasant dreams and got up on Tuesday morning feeling groggy and drained.  Double Potions was hell, as he was still partnering Pansy (Harry hoped that Tony was suffering equally with Malfoy) and Herbology managed to be interminable considering that it was only a single lesson.

He was seriously considering using his free period to catch up on his sleep when Ernie Macmillan, one of the Hufflepuff prefects, caught up with him on the way to the dungeons with a note requesting that he go straight to the Headmaster's office.

Harry decided that if it was a duelling lesson he was simply going to _have_ to cry off.  There was no way he could face a sprightly Mr. Pettifer and his granddaughter feeling the way he did.

But it was Sirius who was waiting for him in Dumbledore's office when he got there.

"I wondered why my diary didn't vibrate," he said, accepting his godfather's hug.  "But why are you here?  And what's with the face fungus?"

Sirius grinned, running a hand over four weeks' worth of beard.  "You don't like it?"

Harry studied his face with a small frown.  "It's not as bad as it was when I first met you," he conceded.

"Thanks - I think!  I might trim it into a goatee."

"Why bother?"

"You're just jealous.  Forget my beard for a minute - we need to have a chat."

Harry felt a twinge of alarm.  "Is something wrong with Remus?"

"He's fine," Sirius said firmly.  "I left him in bed, recuperating.  This is something else."  He turned to the Headmaster, who was watching the two of them from where he stood by the fireplace.  "Is there somewhere we could talk privately, Headmaster?"

"It's a fine day - perhaps in my private garden," Dumbledore suggested.  "Harry knows the password."

"Did you fly here?" Harry asked, as he led Sirius out of the Headmaster's office and down a set of side stairs to a doorway that led into the gardens.

"No ... I Floo'd to Hogsmeade and walked," Sirius replied.

Harry gave him an odd look.  "Really?  It's a nice day - I'd have thought you'd want to get your bike out."

"Maybe I didn't feel like it," Sirius said mildly.  "Besides, if I'd flown here this could have taken five or six hours.  I don't want to leave Remus that long."

"Oh.  Fair enough."

Harry led Sirius up to the narrow scroll-work iron gate that led into the Headmaster's private garden and muttered the password as he lifted the latch.  It was indeed quite a nice day considering that September was in its final gasps and the stone bench Harry went to sit on was dry, if a little cold.

"So what's up?" he asked, when Sirius had brushed away a few dead leaves and sat down next to him.

"You first," Sirius suggested, giving him an odd little smile.  "What on earth have you been up to lately?"

Harry frowned, giving his godfather a cockeyed look.  "Did Dumbledore or Snape get you to come up here?"

"Snape call me up here indeed!  No - I told you, I need to have a chat with you."

"Then you go first."

This time Harry knew he wasn't mistaken.  Sirius looked decidedly uncomfortable; worried, even.  He hesitated, looked anywhere but at Harry, and fiddled with the cuff of his dark blue robe.

"Something _is_ wrong with Remus," he guessed, alarmed.

"No!" Sirius looked around quickly.  "Truly, it's nothing like that.  Although admittedly he wasn't very happy with me last night ...."

"What did you do?" Harry demanded suspiciously.  He'd lived with the two of them long enough to know that while Remus-the-man could hold his temper with Sirius under incredible provocation, Remus-the-wolf was considerably less restrained.  If Remus was annoyed with Sirius just before the change, then Padfoot would get a rough time of it from the wolf.  "Is _that_ why you didn't fly up here?"

Sirius sighed and rubbed his face.  "All right, all right!  Yes, partly - he knocked me about a bit last night and I didn't much fancy a long trip on the bike with the bruises I've got.  But I don't particularly want to be away from him for too long anyway.  It's been a rough couple of weeks, really.  You heard about those two families who had their houses burned?"

"Yeah - I saw Blaise's newspaper.  Who were they?"

"No one you'll know, but it was a bad business.  Both were young families, both sets of parents were Muggleborn.  One of the kids is still in St. Mungo's, being treated for burns and smoke inhalation."

"And it was Death Eaters?" Harry asked, but he knew the answer already.

"Of course," Sirius said, with a sigh.  "A fairly minor action by their standards, but that's no consolation to the people involved.  And it's typical that the _Prophet_ should have picked those stories to start changing their tune with.  Nothing about the disappearances.  We lost a couple of Order members this month as well, although I don't suppose Dumbledore told you about that."

"He never talks about stuff going on outside unless I ask him," Harry said, "and even then he doesn't really _tell_ me things."  This was such a familiar situation that he'd mostly stopped feeling aggrieved about it.

"I don't blame him.  You have enough on your mind," Sirius said.  "Well, that's been going on, among other things.  But that's not what I'm supposed to be telling you."

Harry felt his stomach clench in nervous anticipation.  "Is this about Voldemort?"

"No!  No."  Sirius's smile was unconvincing.  "Nothing to do with that at all, actually.  It's more of a family thing."

"Family?"  Harry was confused.  "My family?"

"Depends.  Am I your family?"

"Of course.  I don't have anyone else, do I?"

"Apart from Snape and he ... sorry, now I'm rambling."  Sirius drew in a deep breath and seemed to brace himself.  "As you can see, there's no easy way to put this, so - it looks like I'm going to be a father."

Now Harry was really confused.  "I know that.  You told me all about it before I came back to school."

"No, Harry - I told you then that I _needed_ to become a father," Sirius said.  He looked at the teenager with visible trepidation.  "Now it's happened.  I'm actually going to _be_ a father, sometime around the end of May."

Harry's mind went blank for a second.  He really hadn't expected Sirius to say this, of all things.

"That was quick," he said, and his voice sounded stiff and unnatural even to his own ears.

"Yeah, well ...."  Sirius looked more uncomfortable than ever.  "There didn't seem to be any point in waiting around when the paperwork had all been finalised, and there are ways to - to plan these things to a certain extent."

"Oh."

There was a long silence.

"Are you going to say anything?" Sirius asked finally.  He was starting to look rather wretched.  "Hit me, maybe?"

"Why would I hit you?" Harry muttered.

"I don't know, but it seemed to make Remus feel a bit better."

Harry stared at him and suddenly noticed something he hadn't seen at first in the dimmer light of the Headmaster's office.  Sirius's new beard rather handily hid the shadow of a raw new bruise on his jaw, and it startled the boy out of his apathy.

"He _hit_ you?"

Sirius gave him a wry smile.  "Just the once, then he beat himself up a bit for doing it."

"Was that before or after he changed?"

"Before."  Sirius grimaced.  "I didn't tell him, you see.  He said he didn't want to know any details or when it happened, so I arranged to sort it out while I was staying in London for the opening session of the Wizengamot.  I didn't say anything until Primrose confirmed that - that she's pregnant."

Harry could relate to Remus's decision.  He wouldn't have wanted to know the details either, although he also understood why Remus had been angry afterwards about not knowing.  You could talk yourself around all sorts of situations, but while you might reconcile yourself to them eventually it didn't mean you necessarily felt any happier about it.

He thought about this for a while.  May seemed like an awfully long way off, but it didn't take more than a moment or two for him to realise the implications.  The baby would be born just before he sat his final exams, which meant that he had the Christmas and Easter holidays left before his home life as he knew it changed for good.  Possibly not even that; he had his mock NEWTs in March and might have to stay at school to revise.  Either way, when he left Hogwarts for the final time it would be to return to a household that would be entirely different to the one he'd left, and he was no longer sure what his position in it would be.  Especially if he had problems getting a job, and he was sure that would be the case.

And then there was the _other_ problem in his life.  The big one.

"Is it going to be safe for Miss Pettifer and a baby to live at Black Manor with me there too?" he asked, and he was pleased that his voice sounded quite casual.

Sirius gave him a strange look.  "Why, are you planning to run amok with a carving knife or something?"

Harry raised his brows at him.  "I have a night-time visitor inside my head - remember?"

"Do you think you're going to be any more dangerous when there's a baby in the house than you would be normally?"

"I don't know.  I can't speak for His Nibs, can I?" 

"He's never made you attack Remus or me yet," Sirius said reasonably.  "He's never managed to make you do anything where you weren't conscious of what you were doing, has he?  And you have far more control of the situation now than you did before."

Harry was unconvinced.  He hadn't forgotten the debacle at the Ministry; people could say what they liked about him making a decision based on the facts he had at the time, but it remained that he'd nearly got several members of the Order killed on that occasion - Sirius in particular.  Only a very quick move on Dumbledore's part had saved Sirius's life.  Then there had been the boiling cauldron last term which, while a very minor incident compared to everything else that had happened to him over the years, was still a very disturbing lapse for Harry.

"Is it going to bother you?" Sirius asked unexpectedly.

Harry eyed him warily.  "What do you mean?"

"Is your nose going to be put out of joint by this?"

That was uncomfortably blunt.  If Harry had been reluctant to guess at Voldemort's reaction to the new Heir of the House of Black being in residence, still less did he want to consider his own.  He had no experience of babies whatsoever but he did know that he felt less than happy about Miss Pettifer moving in with them, and when he tried to imagine what it would be like with every other adult in the house - every other adult of his acquaintance, in fact - fussing over something that he knew anecdotally to be about a hundred times more appealing than him, he honestly couldn't say what his reaction would be.  He was feeling resentful already; that couldn't be a good sign.  But he wasn't about to admit that to anyone, not even Sirius.

"Nah," he said calmly.

They looked at each other. 

"Right," Sirius said eventually.  He didn't look convinced.

"That doesn't mean I want to baby-sit or anything," Harry added, for good measure.

"No?"

"No."

Sirius nodded.  He still looked sceptical.  "So it's not going to bother you, me having a baby in the house?"

"It is if you're going to keep going on about it," Harry said before he could stop himself.  He bit the inside of his cheek in frustration, and tried a different tack.  "Look, I don't know, do I?  I've never lived with a baby before.  But I s'pose I'm not going to have to share a room with it, so ...."

Sirius looked away for a moment, scratching his beard rather pensively.  Harry kept his mouth shut, not wanting to prejudice himself by saying anything else.  Eventually Sirius gave him a sidelong look.

"It's okay to tell me if you're not happy about this," he said.

Harry felt a surge of aggravation.  "And you'll do what - not have the baby?  It's a bit late for that and anyway, you have to do this, don't you?"

"I don't want you to feel like you're being pushed out of the house, Harry.  You're part of my family."

Harry wondered why it should be so much more annoying that Sirius seemed to know what he was really feeling.  Only five minutes ago he'd quite readily agreed that he and Sirius were family; now it took a serious effort of will not to repudiate all claims of a relationship between them.  He hated being so obviously conflicted about this; but he hated the reason for it more.

"If I am it's my problem, isn't it?" he said.  "It's not like I was likely to live with you and Remus forever, after all."

Sirius began to look really stressed.  "My God, Harry, I don't want you leaving home because of this.  Leave because you want to get a place with Ron, or because you want to live at The Rose House, or because you're travelling the world, or whatever - but don't leave because I have a kid and you feel ignored or unwanted."

Harry began to wish that most of the events of the past year hadn't happened.  This conversation would have been so much easier if he and Sirius were still barely on speaking terms.

"I'm seventeen, not five," he retorted. 

"It's not about your age – "

The thin thread of Harry's temper finally snapped.  The past few days had been long and stressful and he was exhausted; he was in no way prepared to deal with this kind of conversation with his godfather. 

"Look, what do you want me to say?  I don't know what you want!  It had to happen, you made it happen, and we all have to live with that, okay?  I'm not blaming you for anything!  And if I don't like the idea, that's totally my problem and it's nothing you can put right by talking to me.  You came up here and told me, like you had to, and I'm grateful, but I have about a million kinds of crap on my plate right now and you have to get back to Remus.  So let's just … stop talking and do that."  He got hastily to his feet, not sure where he was intending to go but wanting to get away from Sirius as fast as he could.

"Harry, don't …."  Sirius stood up too, reaching out to take the teenager's arm, but Harry evaded his hand.  "Please don't walk away from me like this.  Talk to me."

Harry found he didn't even want to look at his godfather, although he didn't really know why.

"I can't … I've got stuff to do," he muttered, and he shouldered his bag and walked away, ignoring the small part of him that kept shouting inside his head that he was being stupid and should just sit and talk to Sirius about everything that was bothering him ….

 

xXx

 

"What happened to you last night?" Blaise whispered, when he met Harry outside the DADA classroom the following morning.

Harry had spent the night curled up under one of the study carrels in the hidden room; for the life of him he couldn't remember how he'd got there or why.  He only knew that he'd woken that morning with the most appalling stiff neck and assorted aches and pains, and on top of that he'd been covered in dust and had no clean change of clothing or time to get one.  He'd had a sketchy wash in a bathroom on his way to class and run a cleaning spell over his robes, and knew that neither was sufficient to tidy him up.  He probably looked and smelled like he'd spent the night under a desk somewhere, but he wasn't about to admit anything to Blaise.

"What's it matter?" he asked in return.  His mood hadn't improved since the previous day.

Blaise's mouth tightened with annoyance.  "It matters because Snape was trying to find you last night and no one had seen you since Herbology.  Now he knows you were out all night, because Malfoy made a point of telling him." 

"And?"

" _And_ you have detention with Snape.  He told me to tell you."

"So what else is new?" Harry snapped.  To his relief the classroom doors opened and that was the end of that conversation.

It was not the end of his problems, however.  The next lesson was a free one and before he'd fully put his DADA texts away, his diary was vibrating with a summons to the Headmaster's office.  Harry dragged himself there, expecting a lecture, but although Dumbledore gave him a very grave look when he arrived he said nothing.  He didn't have to; Mr. Pettifer was waiting to give Harry another duelling lesson, and for the first time in their dealings together Harry made a complete mess of almost every spell and manoeuvre he tried.  Pettifer had him tied up in knots within moments of every bout they engaged in, until he finally called a halt after a scant half-hour and the two of them faced each other in uncomfortable silence.

It was Pettifer who finally broke it.

"I think it would be pointless to continue today, Henry.  I'm sure you will agree that you are not at all on your normal form."

Harry didn't know what to say.  "I'm sorry, Sir."

"Apologies are unnecessary."  Pettifer hesitated, visibly considering what to say.  "I'll not insult your intelligence by pretending ignorance of the cause of your distraction – "

"Please, Sir, I really don't want to talk about it," Harry interrupted quickly.

A pause.

"Very well," Pettifer said heavily.  "I respect your wishes.  But my dear boy, I beg you to remember that I am at your service should you wish to talk in the future.  Pray don't allow my – involvement – in this matter to prevent you speaking your mind to me, if not to anyone else."

There weren't many people Harry wanted to talk to less about the situation, though.  He made the right kind of noises and parted from his elderly mentor on civil if not precisely cordial terms, not realising that he was leaving Pettifer in a state of considerable concern.

Having skipped breakfast he should really have eaten lunch, but by this time Harry's mental turmoil was translating into physical nausea.  Lunch never even crossed his mind; he went to sit outside the Transfiguration classroom and stared blindly at the same two pages of his textbook until everyone else arrived.  After Transfiguration he had an hour of Divination, his first lesson with Ron that week.

It wasn't easy for the two of them to talk, even in the dimly lit, incense-fogged atmosphere of Professor Trelawney's classroom, so Ron resorted to their usual method of communication and slipped Harry a small note.

 

 _You look terrible.  Are you okay?_

 

At least with a note he could rely on his words to speak for themselves, without the recipient trying to read other meanings into his face and voice.

 

 _Didn't sleep well last night.  Stop worrying._

 

There was a pause as Professor Trelawney fluttered around their table, talking about omens in entrails and spirit-dancing.  When she drifted away again, Ron slipped the bit of paper back.

 

 _Are you still up for meeting later?_

 

Harry hesitated.  On the one hand, he knew that if he met up with Ron – and, unfortunately, Granger – it was odds on that one or both of them would demand to know why he looked terrible and why he hadn't slept the night before.  He didn't want to discuss that with them.  On the other hand – it was Ron.  He saw so little of Ron and today of all days he badly wanted to spend time with the one person who wasn't making unreasonable demands of him.  Or at least, Ron might make demands but they were the kinds of demands Harry felt he could cope with and might even welcome.

 

 _Of course.  After dinner, right?_

 

Ron's reply was pointed and proved that he hadn't been fooled.

 

 _If you promise to actually EAT dinner._

 

xXx

 

Hermione was even less impressed by Harry's appearance than Ron had been.

"You look like you tangled with a steamroller and came off worst," she told him bluntly.  "Have you even been back to your dormitory today?  I heard about you staying out all night, you know, so I'm guessing those are yesterday's clothes."

Her tactless tongue had one major benefit; it pulled Harry at least partially out of his apathy.

"You really know how to make a bloke feel good about himself, Granger, you know that?" he said, dumping his book bag in a corner of the printer room.

"Why didn't you go back to your dorm?" Ron asked, frowning.  "And if you didn't go back there, where did you sleep?"

Harry wasn't about to discuss this with them, especially when there was a fourth person in the room in the shape of Neville Longbottom.

"Can we just get on with this?"

Ron gave him a sharp-eyed look, then seemed to give in.  "Come on, then.  We'll show you the ropes, Nev, okay?"

They went through one practice run to show Neville how the press worked, then Hermione pulled out her draft flyer for the newspaper and demanded Harry's opinion.  Before he could summon the energy to comment, however, there was an odd scratching sound at the door.

"Who the hell is that?" Harry demanded in an undertone.  "Are you expecting someone else?"

Hermione gave him an odd look.  "There's no need to whisper.  We have permission to do this, remember?"

She went to the door and opened it, and to everyone's surprise a large brown owl flew inside with an envelope clamped in its beak.  Harry's heart sank; he knew that owl.

So did Ron, after spending half the summer holiday at Black Manor.  "Isn't that Loki?" he asked Harry.

"Yeah."  Loki was Sirius's owl. 

Harry reluctantly allowed the owl to land on his shoulder and took the envelope.  As soon as it was delivered, Loki shook all his feathers out and took off again without waiting to see if Harry had a reply.

The writing on the front of the envelope was Remus's.  More reluctant than ever, Harry tore it open and pulled out the single sheet of paper.  Remus's handwriting was still a little off from his usual firm, clear script, but it was perfectly readable and no one who didn't know him would realise there was anything wrong.  He was also brief and to the point.

 

 _Harry –_

 _I know you're upset, and believe me I know why and understand probably better than anyone at the moment.  But I wish you would talk to us – to me at least, even if you feel you can't talk to Sirius right now._

 _Will you let me come and see you?  I can't come up to the school, but I know Dumbledore will allow you a pass into Hogsmeade if I ask him.  What do you think?  We could meet at the Three Broomsticks this weekend._

 _Let me know and I'll arrange it._

 _Love,_

 _Remus_

Harry stuffed the letter and envelope into his pocket, upset and angry all over again.  He knew Remus and he knew that all he would hear from him were words of reason, when right now that was the last thing Harry wanted to hear from him.  He didn't want to hear him being patient and understanding about situations he hated but couldn't change; just this once Harry wanted to hear him voice his anger and frustration, so that Harry himself could feel able to let rip and express his torment.  He was so tired of watching people bottling everything up and feeling that he had to bottle everything up in his turn.

"Problem?" Ron asked him quietly, and Harry realised that his face couldn't have been as inexpressive as he'd hoped.

"It's nothing," he muttered.

"Okay, mate."

It wasn't okay, though, and against his will something was tugging inside him until the words suddenly spilled out in spite of his every resolution to keep this mess to himself.

"It's Remus," he blurted.  "He wants to see me this weekend."

"What for?" Ron asked, looking mildly surprised.  "I thought you said he can't come up to the school unless it's an emergency?"

"He can't.  He said he'd get Dumbledore to give me a pass for Hogsmeade."

"Then it must be important," Hermione noted.  "Weekend passes don't grow on trees."

"You're going then?" Ron prompted him.

"No … yes – no – I don't know."  Harry chewed his lip savagely.  "I don't really want to see him.  He's only going to nag at me."

"About what?"

He'd come this far; there was really no point in holding out the rest.

"About Sirius.  I had a row with him yesterday."

Ron blinked.  "Sirius was here yesterday?"

"Yeah."  The word came out in a mumble and Harry began to fiddle unnecessarily with a couple of levers on the press.

"Did he come to talk to you about those house-burnings that happened last week?" Hermione asked, wide-eyed.  "It was so obvious that it was done by Death Eaters."

"No."  Harry tasted blood on his lip and touched it, wincing.  He'd bitten it raw.  "No, he came up here to tell me that he's going to be a dad."

"Oh!"  Hermione was taken aback.  "But I thought … well, I thought he had some sort of legal arrangement with Professor Lupin.  Doesn't he?"

"It's not that simple," Ron said, before Harry could reply.  He was watching Harry's face worriedly. 

Neville spoke up unexpectedly.  "The Wizengamot have said he can be reinstated as the Head of the House of Black if he has an heir.  If he's already married or something to someone else - to Professor Lupin - then he probably had to find a surrogate."

Harry had the meagre satisfaction of seeing Hermione momentarily struck speechless. 

"A surrogate," she repeated after a moment.

"It's unusual but - but there are precedents ...."  Neville saw the look on her face and his voice trailed off, alarmed.

"He's going to use a surrogate to have a baby so that he doesn't lose his house or his title or all his money," Hermione stated indignantly.

"Don't start," Ron said sharply, looking between her and Harry in alarm. 

He could have saved his breath.

"That ... is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," she said.  She was starting to turn red with anger.  "He's _buying_ a baby, just so that he can - "

"Hermione, don't say it!"

"Don't say _what,_ Ron?" she demanded, turning to face him.  "That it's wrong for a man to _pay_ someone to have a baby for him just so that he can go on living in the style he's become accustomed to?"

"I don't think it's really like that," Neville ventured, looking from one face to another anxiously.  He flinched when she swung around to face him instead, but stood his ground.  "I - I mean, if Mr. Black doesn't really like women and he's handfasted anyway, then there's no other way he can get around it.  And it's not exactly his fault - the Wizengamot - "

"He could say no!"

"Says the person who's never had anything to do with the Wizengamot," Ron said impatiently.  "When will you get it through your head that things aren't that simple in our world?  The Wizengamot runs our lives!  They make the laws, they run the courts, they control the banks, the Aurors and the MLEs.  People like you and me would be bloody lucky to even _meet_ a member of the Wizengamot most of the time."

"And that would stop him saying no to them - how?" she demanded.

"What do you want?" Harry asked her, finding his voice at last, and he was relieved to hear it come out sounding quite mild and reasonable.  Of course, the other two were saying all the important things for him.  "If he says no, he either loses everything or they find an heir for him from other people in his family.  People like the Malfoys."

"So you're saying this is right?" Hermione demanded.

Harry shrugged, wondering why he was even talking to her about this.  "I'm saying he really didn't have much choice."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Harry!  Of _course_ he had a choice!  A baby isn't a commodity!  It's a _person_ , it has rights, but you're all talking about it like it's a house or something, that he can just pay for and do what he likes with!  And what about its mother?  I suppose she's being paid but how must she _feel_ , giving up her baby to a man who only wants it so he can stop his property being given to someone he doesn't like?"

"It's Primrose Pettifer," Harry said dryly, "and she asked to do it, because she needs somewhere else to live when Mr. Pettifer dies and her father becomes head of the family."

"Then she's as bad as they are!" Hermione snapped, outraged.  "I don't believe it!  How could anyone have a baby for someone just because she wants somewhere else to live?  Or because of money?"

"What are you suggesting?" Ron demanded.  "That Sirius doesn't give a shit about this baby?  How stupid is that – you've met him, you know what he and Remus are like!  Do you honestly believe it's just about hanging onto the Manor and stuff?  _Malfoy's_ parents are doing it to try and get their hands on the Black family's fortune, but I didn't hear you shooting your mouth off about that!  It was all _Malfoy probably feels really strange, he's been an only child for so long_ – so give it a rest, will you?  Any kid has to stand a better chance with Sirius and Remus than it would with the Malfoys for parents and darling Draco for an older brother!"

"If I didn't _shoot my mouth off_ as you so crudely put it, it's because it went without saying that the Malfoys were doing it for all the wrong reasons!" Hermione said angrily.  "I'm saying that they're _all_ wrong here!  A baby shouldn't be brought into the world just to serve someone else's purposes – it should be born because it's loved and wanted for its own sake, not because it'll ensure property stays in a family – "

"Your problem is that you don't live in the real world," Ron told her, exasperated.  "How often do you think people have kids for unselfish reasons?"

"Your parents did!"

"Yeah, great – but there are seven of us and stacks of cousins besides, and my whole family, all of them, wear second-hand clothes and live practically on the breadline.  That's your definition of 'unselfish', is it?"

"Your parents love you, Ronald!"

"What makes you think Sirius and Remus won't love this kid?" Ron demanded.  "You know what, Hermione?  You're spoilt.  You think that because _you've_ had an ideal life, with both your parents and everything hunky-dory, then everybody has to be the same or there's something wrong with them.  Well, it's not like that even for most people.  It's not like that for me, it's not like that for Neville - "

"Too true," Neville put in quietly.

" – And it _definitely_ hasn't been like that for – "

"I can't listen to this," Harry said, and he headed for the door.  His head was hurting, his stomach was rolling, and he felt like something horrible and unstoppable was about to burst out of him at any moment.

"Harry – "

Harry ignored Ron.  He didn't know where he was intending to go, but anywhere had to be better than this.  The cramped little space under the desks in the hidden room, possibly.  He was halfway down the corridor when Ron caught up with him. 

"Harry?"

Harry kept on walking, blindly.  After a moment or two he felt Ron tuck a hand through his arm.

"Come on, mate – let's find somewhere a bit quieter, yeah?"

Harry let this pass without comment, but he allowed Ron to steer him through various passages until they came to one that seemed vaguely familiar to him.

"Stay here a minute, okay?"  Ron left him standing next to a garish painting of a giant squid wrestling with an early eighteenth century ship with black sails, whose occupants seemed to be putting up a spirited, if futile, fight.  Harry stared at it without really taking in what he was looking at, until Ron returned a few minutes later.

"Not quite what I had in mind," the redhead remarked, taking Harry's arm again, "but it'll do.  Come on, mate.  Let's get you inside."

Harry wondered what this could mean until Ron led him up to the familiar door of the Room of Requirement which was propped open by his book bag.  He pushed the door open and came to a halt on the threshold, staring.

"Yeah, I know," Ron said from behind him, sounding amused and a little exasperated.  "Go on inside!"

The room was … well, certainly not like anything Harry had ever seen before.  For one thing, it was a lot smaller than usual.  There were hangings everywhere, thick tapestry wall hangings made up of abstract patterns in wool, and to one side of the room an enormous thickly cushioned sofa rested up against one wall.  Opposite it was a fireplace complete with a gently burning fire.  A large hip-bath stood on a wide rag-rug on the floor in front of it; there was a patterned screen sheltering it from draughts from the door and several thick, fluffy towels were thrown over the top of the screen.  Fragrant steam rose invitingly from the bath.  And there was a window in the wall opposite the door with a curtain drawn across it, and a table set beside it with plates and covered dishes.

"I was thinking you needed a bath and something to eat," Ron explained.  His ears were pink and he was grinning sheepishly.  "The plan was to get you into that bathtub we used the last time, then get Dobby to bring you some grub, but it looks like the Room's got it all covered."

"I don't look that bad," Harry muttered.

"Yeah, mate, you really do," Ron told him frankly.  "And don't tell me you ate at dinnertime, because I know you didn't."

"I did!" Harry protested.

"Yeah?  What did we have, then?"

Harry's mind went blank.  He'd definitely gone to dinner – he'd had no choice, Ron walked with him to the Great Hall doors, straight from Divination – but he couldn't remember what he'd put on his plate or whether he'd forced any of it down.  He'd been too busy trying to keep a calm expression on his face.

"Rest my case," Ron said a little smugly.  He dropped his bag on the floor and checked the door was secure, then turned back to his friend.  "Come on – get your stuff off and hop in the tub.  The water won't stay hot forever."

Not having the willpower to stand up to his friend at present, Harry did as he was told and he had to admit that once he was settled in the bath he felt … not better, exactly, but at least not as dreadful as he'd felt when he walked out of the printer room.  Ron, showing a disconcerting domestic streak, neatly folded up Harry's clothes, putting his wand, wristwatch and spectacles on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, then set a couple of large bath-towels out, grabbed a sponge and knelt down beside the tub to start washing his friend.

"You don't have to bathe me," Harry mumbled, and he was appalled to feel sudden tears stinging his eyes.

"Shut up, idiot.  I want to."

He swabbed Harry's back, shoulders, chest and arms gently, then made him lean forward so that he could wash his hair (the room had thoughtfully provided a brass can of warm water for this purpose).  Then he gave Harry the sponge, saying "Here, finish up while I see if there's a house-elf about.  You can't go back to your dorm in a towel and you've worn your uniform twice already."

Harry finished washing himself and had just climbed out onto the rug, swathed in towels, when Ron returned with one of the school elves in tow.  Harry recognised her as a laundry-room elf at once, for instead of the usual tea towel she was wearing a terrycloth hand-towel like a toga.  She bowed ingratiatingly to Harry, snatched up his dirty clothes and whisked away.

"Where did you find her?" Harry asked, although his curiosity was about at its lowest ebb really.

"She popped up when I left the room," Ron replied, shrugging.  "You know what they're like, they sometimes seem to know when they're wanted.  Come on, let's see what's in those dishes, yeah?  You can eat in a towel."

Harry didn't really want to eat but he followed Ron to the table anyway, and when Ron lifted the lid off the biggest of the dishes he was glad he had.  Steam arose, and with it the familiar and comforting aroma of Remus's Lupin's sausage casserole.  Against all the odds Harry's mouth began to water.  The smaller bowls held smooth mashed potatoes, peas, carrots and a plate of warm buttered bread rolls, and there was a large china teapot that was also lazily emitting steam.

"I reckon this room knows you too well," Ron noted, grinning.  He pushed Harry into one of the chairs and proceeded to pile his plate with food.  "Get that down your neck, you daft sod.  I bet you'll feel a hundred times better with some grub in you."

Harry doubted that, but he felt more interested in eating now than he had in over twenty-four hours.  He picked up a fork and stabbed it into a chunk of sausage – incredibly, the room had managed to produce the thick gravy, heavily laced with loops of onion, that only Remus ever seemed to get right.  The sausage made it into his mouth, which he considered an achievement.

Fifteen minutes later his plate was as clean as he could make it with half a bread roll and Ron was grinning at him over a mug of tea.

"All right now, mate?"

"Hm."  Actually, what he mostly felt was _stuffed_ , although it wasn't an unpleasant feeling.  And he was really, really tired all of a sudden. The enormous sofa was calling to him.

The laundry elf reappeared as though summoned, bearing a pile of his clothes – boxers, jeans, Slytherin-striped Quidditch jersey, socks and a pair of trainers – and Ron helped him to dress, very matter-of-fact in the face of Harry's embarrassing sudden lethargy.  They both made it to the sofa and Harry gratefully slumped into it, leaning into Ron's shoulder.

"You going to tell me what's up now?" Ron's voice gently intruded into the barely waking daze Harry had slid into.

"Hm?"

"You said you had a row with Sirius.  And that Remus wants to nag you.  What's that all about?"

"Oh.  The baby, I s'pose."  Harry closed his eyes.  For a while there he'd forgotten why he had been so agitated; his stomach twinged a little in renewed anxiety.

"But you knew he had to do it," Ron pointed out.

"Didn't expect it to be so soon."

"Does it matter when it happened?"

"… No."

"Then what's the problem?"

Harry had to think about that.  "It's a baby," he said finally.  "And it's her."

"Miss Pettifer?"

"Yeah."

"What about her?" Ron asked.

"What about Remus?"

"What do you mean?"

Harry drew his knees up a little and hugged his arms around himself.  He didn't think he could make Ron understand this.

"How would you feel if your dad cheated on your mum?"

He felt Ron twitch and there was a pause.

"It's not like that, though, is it?" Ron said carefully after a moment or two.  "Sirius is only doing this because he _has_ to have an heir.  It's like you said to Hermione, he doesn't have any choice.  It's not like he fancies Miss Pettifer or anything."

"She wants stuff that'll change everything at home," Harry said.  "Wants to live with us if Mr. Pettifer dies."

"Well … I suppose, but that's something they've all talked about, haven't they, and Remus knows all about it.  And she's not moving in straight away, is she?"

"Don't know.  But Sirius'll want the baby to live at the Manor."

"You reckon?"  Ron sounded dubious.

"Yeah.  'Course he will.  He's soft on kids and stuff.  And it's _his_ kid."

"It's still just a baby," Ron said reasonably.  When Harry didn't respond to this he added, "I don't s'pose you know many babies, though, right?

"Don't know any," Harry mumbled.  He felt terribly tired.

"I know stacks – my family are always having kids.  Babies are okay, so long as you can hand 'em back."

Harry couldn't think of any way to make Ron understand how he felt about this _particular_ baby.  The words _I just got Sirius's attention for once, I don't need competition_ were so terribly self-centred.

He didn't realise that he'd said them anyway until Ron replied gently, "I've got five brothers and a sister, mate, but I don't reckon Bill thinks Dad stopped loving him when the rest of us were born."

"That's not the point.  It's Sirius's kid."

"So?"

"So it's different."  Harry struggled to find a way to express how he felt about this, and hated that he could feel himself on the verge of tears again.  "It's _his_ kid.  I'm not his kid.  I'm nobody – I don't have anybody except him and Remus, and we're not family or anything, so it's different.  Everybody leaves me or dumps me or has somebody more important or – "

"Mate – I don't reckon that's true – "

"You don't know what it's like!  When my mum and dad died I got shoved off on my aunt because no one else wanted me.  And _she_ hated me and only kept me because they paid her to do it!  And - and then Sirius turned up, but there was all that shit about me being a Slytherin, and do you realise Remus was a teacher here for a _year_ and never told me he was my godfather or anything?"

He dragged his head up off Ron's shoulder and looked at him; the redhead looked stricken, although whether this was at Harry's outburst generally or at the specifics it was impossible for Harry to tell, and nor did he really care.  He turned away again, sliding down into the sofa cushions a little.

"People lie and change their minds all the time," he muttered.  " I reckon if Dumbledore didn't have a use for me, he'd have let my aunt dump me in an orphanage and forgotten that I was a wizard too."

He let his head fall back against the cushions and closed his eyes again, exhausted.

 

xXx

 

Over the week that followed, Harry dealt with the situation he'd got himself into in a wholly typical way; by not really dealing with it at all. 

He awoke early the morning after his intense conversation with Ron.  He felt curiously clear-headed and calm, if somewhat empty inside; he took a shower, shaved for the first time in several days, and put on a clean uniform.  His mental shields were locked tight and so was his practised expression of bland indifference, and when he presented himself at the breakfast table he felt like he was genuinely in control of himself again, although he wasn't inclined to look at himself too deeply.

His first class was Herbology, and following that he had a free lesson which Professor Snape had appropriated for him to serve his detention for stopping out on Tuesday night.  If there was ever a time when his control was likely to break it should have been then, for Snape had decided that the most appropriate punishment was for Harry to disembowel toads at the front of his classroom while he taught a class of Second Year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.  It might even have worked as a strategy had it only been one of the senior years, but the younger Slytherins were too respectful of Harry's position at the top of their social pecking order and the Hufflepuffs too afraid of his reputation generally, so that Harry was left to complete his grisly task without the added humiliation from his peers that Snape had almost certainly been hoping for.

Throughout the rest of the day Harry made it through his classes with his iron grip on himself intact.  So long as he didn't allow himself to think about what had happened earlier in the week – so long as he didn't think about Sirius at all, or Remus for that matter – he could handle it.  He focussed on his immediate goals, this class, that bit of homework, a squabble between his housemates, with a simple mantra running constantly at the back of his mind –

 _Don't stop, don't think, keep going._

It was the mantra that had got him through scores of other crises in his life, from surviving primary school with Dudley and the cupboard under the stairs, to the isolation of his Second Year when everyone had thought he was the Heir of Slytherin, and the horrors of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.  It had worked for him then.  He honestly believed it would work for him now.

He didn't allow himself to think about the rift opening up between him and his godparents.  In his mind there was no rift; he decided that he must have misjudged the situation all along and allowed himself to be lured into a false sense of security, and consequently there could be no rift because a rift cannot exist where there is already a gaping chasm.

He was on his own once more and once he could fully accept and assimilate that fact he knew things would become a lot easier.  Everything would be clearer and simpler and he would know what to do again.

He just had to learn to accept it, that was all.

 

xXx

 

Sirius was standing at the head of the driveway, studying the mess caused by the repair works to the main entrance of the Manor, when Remus walked slowly around the side of the house to join him.  Autumn was definitely setting in now and brown leaves were blowing fitfully around the paths and garden on a sharp breeze.

Dried out and wind-bitten suited Sirius's mood at the moment; it did a good job of describing how he was feeling.

"I saw Hedwig arrive," he said when Remus stopped at his side.  "Do I want to know what he said?  Will he see you?"

Remus squinted up at the front fascia of the house for a moment, then looked back at his partner.  His smile was trying to be wryly amused but not quite making it.  Sirius's heart sank.

"Well, that's that, then," he said.  "We're back to where we started."

He dug his hands into his jeans pockets, hunching his shoulders a little, and was surprised when Remus stepped closer and tucked a hand through the crook of his elbow, leaning against him. 

"Pads, stop blaming yourself - please?  You knew there was a sporting chance he'd go off the deep end."

"Yeah, but I seem to have royally screwed up everything somehow," Sirius said bitterly.  "It seemed like a really good idea to just deal with it since I was in London anyway, and instead I upset everyone.  Including Primrose, I think."

Remus raised a brow.  "How so?"

Sirius sighed and rolled his eyes.  "I'm not sure, but I think she was a bit put out by me wanting to get it over with as soon as possible."

He was relieved when Remus laughed softly.  "Not very flattering to her, Padfoot!  Besides, she strikes me as a lady who likes to have everything just so.  Perhaps you disrupted her well-ordered existence."

"Yeah, well ... that's the least of my problems.  Remus, what the devil am I going to do about Harry?  Should I go up there and try again, do you think?"

"I doubt Dumbledore will let you," Remus pointed out.  "Anyone else would have to tell their kid in writing, you know.  I'm sure he only made a concession this time because he knows what Harry's like.  I had my doubts about Dumbledore allowing a special pass for him to see me, but it seemed worth a try just to get him talking."

"I don't know how else to handle this," Sirius said helplessly.  "I'm not all that good on paper, and I don't suppose the first Hogsmeade weekend is until the end of the month."

"It might be better to give him a week or two to cool down."

"But I don't want him in a tearing temper on the run up to his Confirmation," Sirius pointed out.  "All we need now is for him to decide he won't do it after all, and that's a lot more people than just us with their noses put out of joint.  The goodwill of the bishop relies on Harry going through with it."

Remus was silent for a moment.  "I'd forgotten about that," he admitted.  "Maybe we need to have a word with Father Marius, then?  He'll be visiting Harry soon for a final class and rehearsal."

"Yeah," Sirius said heavily.  "I wish there was some other way, though.  What did Harry say to you?"

"Well ... it wasn't quite _Piss off and let me wallow_ , but it came close."

"How close?"

Remus sighed.  "Padfoot, I think between the two of us we've whipped you enough already.  Do you really need to know the exact wording?"

"Yes!  How else am I supposed to know how bad the damage is?"

"Fine ...."  Remus dug into his pocket and extracted a squashed-looking envelope which he handed over.

Sirius pulled out the single sheet of lined paper and unfolded it.  The harsh black letters almost leapt off the page at him.

 

 _Thanks, but I already know how I'm supposed to be behaving.  I'll manage._

 _Harry_

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**13 th October – 19th November 1997**

 

The Gryffindors had nicknames for their least beloved Slytherins.  Draco Malfoy was "The Ferret" (thanks to the incident in Fourth Year when Professor Moody briefly turned him into one); Marcus Flint had been referred to as "Bludger-Brain"; Pansy Parkinson was known as "Squealer" because of her habit of shrieking whenever there was a confrontation of some kind; and a couple of Muggleborns had christened Crabbe and Goyle "Laurel and Hardy", a joke that had to be explained to their wizardborn housemates but which had taken surprising well.

Harry Potter had several nicknames, depending on the current mood towards him.  "Potty Potter" was a perennial favourite; simple and to the point.  Where Quidditch was concerned, he was usually referred to as "The Boy Who's A Serious Pain In The Arse" (or "The Boy Who Needs To Be Knocked Off His Bloody Broom" as the Weasley twins had resentfully coined it).  Variations on "Snake-Boy" and "Snake-Mouth" had popped up during their Second Year, when his gift of Parseltongue had unexpectedly been revealed.  A pretty unpleasant campaign had been waged against him during Fourth Year, when he had accidentally ended up as Cedric Diggory's rival in the Tri-Wizard Tournament, involving flashing "Potter Stinks!" badges and concerted attempts to intimidate and harass him.  Sometimes, however, he was referred to as "the Icicle" or "the Brick Wall" if he was noticed at all, because of his habitually cool expression and the way he kept himself apart from everyone, including his fellow Slytherins.

The name-calling had temporarily ceased at the beginning of term, as the other three houses were far too interested in watching the Slytherin infighting and taking wagers on who would win - Malfoy or Potter.  When Harry emerged apparently victorious, everyone had watched uneasily.  The general consensus was that things were probably marginally better for everyone with him in control of Slytherin, although he wasn't given much credit for the improvement when it became known that he was taking punishments for any Slytherin who stepped out of line.

The Monday after Harry's brief and alarming meltdown in the Room of Requirement, Ron Weasley noticed that the old Icicle nickname was resurfacing and he wasn't surprised.  Over the previous six months Harry had started to emerge a little from behind his rigid, self-imposed walls and while Ron didn't believe that the majority of people had noticed this, his relaxation had resulted in less rigid opinions of him in return.  Few of the Gryffindors would have gone so far as to voice a remotely positive view of him, but there was more confusion about his motives for the things he did and a greater willingness to speculate when his actions caused discussion.

But by Monday it was back to the old Harry Potter with a vengeance, and the difference was … noticeable.  More than that, Ron could tell that the other Slytherins were aware of it and it seemed to have taken most of them off-guard.  Little in his recent behaviour towards them seemed to have changed, but suddenly he was more emotionally walled off and the tiny element of mischief-making that had seemed to infect his dealings with people like Malfoy had vanished into a cold, genuine humourlessness.

But Ron was less concerned with how other people were reacting, and more with Harry himself.  He wasn't blind to the irony of the situation; they had worried about how Malfoy might react to knowing he had a rival sibling on the way, only for Harry to be the one blindsided by a near-identical event instead - and Harry was definitely the one with less resources for coping with it. 

Ron felt partially responsible.  He'd made Harry talk to him that evening in the genuine belief that talking it out would make the other boy feel better.  Even knowing that Harry could be desperately insecure, it hadn't occurred to him that the real result would be a return to the bad old days when Harry held himself aloof from everyone, including the only people he regarded as his family.  Worse, he had no idea if his own relationship with Harry had been damaged in the process; there had been no opportunities to talk to him since then, even over the weekend, and messages sent to him via Rosebud had yielded only replies that reiterated that he was fine and Ron should stop making a fuss.  He was at least still communicating with Ron, even if it was only by clandestine messages, but that was less than reassuring and Ron fretted.

"You should leave him alone for a while," Hermione told him on Wednesday, eventually becoming fed up with his distracted air.  "You are _not_ responsible for Harry's tantrums, Ron.  If you ask me he's behaving in a very childish and immature way about this baby of Mr. Black's, especially if he knew months ago that it was going to happen."

"You try being an orphan, and see how secure you feel when the only people you call family start having kids of their own," Ron retorted.

"Because _you_ can relate to it so easily, I suppose, being neither of those things yourself!" Hermione said sarcastically.  "Ron, he's not a child!  At seventeen he should be over the stage where he lashes out at everyone when he's feeling out of sorts!"

"Except that he's _not_ lashing out.  He's bottling it all up."

"Well, pardon me for preferring that!  At least while he's bottling it up he's not starting riots."

Ron looked at her.  "It doesn't bother you, wondering what'll happen when he can't bottle it up anymore?"

"He has his duelling lessons," Hermione said rather waspishly.  "If he can't be bothered to take it out on the poor people roped in to train him, then he's not as clever as I took him for!"

That wasn't the point, Ron thought.  Harry didn't need a safety valve for his feelings so much as some way to reconcile himself to what was happening in his life.  It seemed odd to him that Harry could accept with equanimity things that would have anyone else running screaming for the hills (hair-kinking nightmares, scary spontaneous magical abilities, Lord Voldemort), while the things that most other people accepted as part and parcel of normal life (family relationships, siblings, rows with parents) screwed him up into knots and made him try to withdraw from all human contact.

Of course, the obvious solution was for Sirius Black to come and see Harry again and have a proper, screaming fight about it, making it brutally clear to Harry in the process that he loved him and was in no way replacing his godson in his affections with a child of his own.  This solution was so obvious that Ron rejected it out of hand because, after all, they were men.  He might occasionally use the L-word to Harry himself, but only in very private moments when it seemed like the only way to get Harry's attention, and he didn't think the same sort of circumstances applied to godparents.  And he'd considered sending Harry a message specifically to reiterate the L-word and how it applied to the two of them, but something told Ron that the timing was off and might provoke entirely the wrong reaction if Harry thought that Ron was trying to manipulate him.  Which – face it! – was entirely the kind of reaction Harry _would_ have.

Ron wished people were more like chess.  He had no skill for labyrinths or conundrums.

Perhaps Hermione was right.  Perhaps the only way to deal with it was to leave Harry alone for a while and let him recover whatever measure of security he felt he needed by armouring himself.

Ron just wished he could feel confident about this approach.

 

xXx

 

The last time Harry had had an upset of this magnitude at school, he'd momentarily lost his mental shields, allowed Voldemort into his mind without realising and ultimately ended up in the infirmary with severe burns to his hands.

Given the scale of the emotional upset this time, he should perhaps have been dead by now.  But the Harry of the summer term was not the Harry of now.  Two months of non-stop training over the summer had hardened his mental shielding, and his grip on Occlumency, to a point where every little inner upheaval failed to disturb it.  In some ways it was as though his mind was neatly compartmentalised, so that the part  he needed to keep on functioning efficiently on a day-to-day basis was kept separate from everything else that was going on inside his head.  He could go to lessons, write his essays, deal with the stream of junior Slytherins requiring his assistance, and even socialise – if that was the word –with people like Blaise while somehow keeping his inner turmoil in check.  If it meant that he did it in a manner that was considerably cooler and more detached than before, then so be it.  The details were none of the other Slytherins' business.

They were curious, though, and in the case of the younger ones even a little unnerved by it.  And yet no one challenged him – not even Blaise.  Blaise had initially scrutinised him, as though weighing up whether the change would prove to be a problem politically, then let it pass.  The one who didn't let up on the scrutiny was Malfoy, but Harry ignored him.  So long as he wasn't causing trouble, his interest was meaningless.

He found that so long as he kept busy and didn't think too much about … things … he could manage.  And keeping busy was not a problem.  The final year for NEWTs students was no joke, even for those like Harry who had already got one major NEWT out of the way and consequently had more free time.  Harry had homework coming out of his ears and when he had spare time he was busy with Quidditch practice, the problems of other Slytherins, and – given half a chance – his own studies, the most demanding of which was Animation. 

Professor Flitwick was pressing him hard on the mastery of separation of consciousness.  It was coming along slowly, and Harry was frustrated with this even though the professor admitted that it was something that took considerable effort to achieve.  In order to make an animated object behave in a suitably lifelike way, without constant control and intervention, first it needed to be a suitably advanced puppet (separation of consciousness could not be done with Harry's first two dimensional cardboard puppets, for example) with proper joints and usually 'eyes' made of a material such as glass or crystal.  The energy expended in keeping a complex puppet moving realistically was far more than that required for a paper model.  Then, to keep it moving when consciousness had been separated, the Animator effectively needed to give it a 'programme' of movements to follow.

This interested Harry when Professor Flitwick first explained the concept, because there were a number of animated items in the school alone that seemed to operate entirely according to their own whims.  That they were, in fact, only moving to a pre-set series of commands seemed hard to credit.

"This is why separation of consciousness is such a difficult part of the discipline to master, Mr. Potter," Flitwick told him, when Harry expressed his doubts.  "The effort expended in creating complex and credible activities for one's creations and then investing them with enough power to ensure indefinite activity, even beyond the demise of the creator, is the mark of a true Master Animator."

Struggling to construct and maintain the chain of minuscule but vital movements required to ensure that his dragon could perform just one task – simple launch, flight around the circumference of the room and landing – after he'd released it from his control almost convinced Harry that he wouldn't master this ability anymore than he seemed to be mastering Legilimancy in his lessons with Dumbledore.

Almost – but not quite.  By the end of the week Harry had almost cracked it.  The dragon's landing was more of an undignified drop to the floor than he liked, but it had worked.  It had launched itself, flown smoothly around the room twice, and brought itself to the ground without damage.  Flitwick praised him, then set him his next task; to animate the snake model to a similar degree.

"A greater challenge, Mr. Potter!" he said, eyes twinkling.  "Consider all the small movements of the skeleton, the flickering of the tongue, and the need for smoothness and sinuosity to be convincing!"

Harry managed a wry grin for the first time in a week.  "Should I take it away to practice with, Sir?"

"Certainly.  One moment, I have it safely kept in my study …."

Flitwick bustled away, leaving Harry on his own in the cluttered private office where they usually conducted their post-lesson discussions.  It was early evening; Harry was already thinking about his Potions essay which needed to be handed in the following day, his eyes roaming idly over the piles of books and scrolls that were stacked on every available surface, when he saw something that gave him a pause.

Behind the professor's desk, amid a wild jumble of text books, rolled-up charts and boxes of odds and ends, stood a short stack of old-fashioned notebooks and squat, elderly texts.

Harry recognised them at once.  They were the pile of books from Black Manor's library that Flitwick had taken away from him at the beginning of term – including the book on spell-based manual animation.

Without even thinking about it, Harry flicked his wand at the little book and it shot across the room into his hand; he slipped it quickly into his pocket and not a second too soon, for Professor Flitwick came hurrying back into the office moments later.  He was carrying a squat round basket with a lid strapped onto it and beamed at Harry.

"I rather thought this receptacle might be more appropriate!" he squeaked, thoroughly delighted with himself, and Harry – still with the week-long sense of detachment he'd nurtured, as though he hadn't just stolen something – laughed at the joke too.

"Won't I need a flute as well, Professor?" he asked, and Flitwick chortled happily.

"My dear boy, how _do_ you think those ancient snake-charmers and rope-climbers did it?!"

It wasn't until Harry had left Flitwick's office, and was stowing the basket and book in the hidden room on the third floor, that it hit him what he had done. 

He'd taken a book that Professor Flitwick had already expressly forbidden to him, had told him quite clearly was forbidden to all but the most advanced students of Classical Animation.  And when Flitwick discovered it was gone Harry had no doubt at all that he would know who had taken it, and then Harry's training in Animation would be at an end.

He should put it back at the first opportunity.  But on the other hand, he wanted that book.  He wanted to know more about spell-based animation and whether it could be melded somehow to classical Animation to form a more versatile craft, just as Sirius's father Gaius Black had seemed to believe.

He couldn't do both though.  Or could he?

Harry secured the room and set off for the library. 

He might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, in which case he had one more rather minor act of theft to commit.  He needed one of Madam Pince's Secretary Quills.

 

xXx

 

"Bit of a scuzzy place to meet, mate," Ron observed, as he joined Harry at the parapet. 

They were at the top of the second highest tower in the castle; a narrow, spindly construction that looked more like an elongated turret than a tower in its own right.  It had a pointed, conical roof with heavily overhanging eaves that sheltered a narrow external walkway with a chest-high crenellated outer wall.

Ron peered over the crenellations curiously and marvelled at how tiny all the people looked in the courtyard below.  There was a very brisk breeze whipping around the turret roof and everything was damp from a brief rainfall during the night.  Slimy bird droppings and moss coated everything.

"Yeah, but you won't get Malfoy up here," Harry replied, leaning against the parapet casually.  "He's okay on a broom, but for some reason he can't stick tall buildings much.  He only manages in the Astronomy Tower – " he jerked his chin over his shoulder at that even taller tower, where it loomed over them from a relatively short distance away, " – because the observation room is partially closed in."

"Seriously?"  Ron shook his head.  "How weird is that?"

Harry shrugged.  "Something to bear in mind if you ever want to scare the shit out of him."

"Nice thought."  Ron studied him for a moment.  "How are you?"

Harry raised his brows.  "I keep telling you – I'm _fine_."

"Right.  This is me you're trying to convince, not Zabini."

"What do you want me to say?" Harry demanded impatiently.  "I'm trying to be normal.  Why is everyone convinced except you?"

"Because I know you better than everyone," Ron told him, "and anyway, everyone's _not_ convinced.  People have noticed, they're just not saying anything to your face."

"It really pisses me off when people have expectations of me," Harry said.  He looked annoyed.  "Why can't they just leave me alone?  Anyone else could screw up if they wanted to, but not me.  I have to live up to people's expectations, even if those expectations are complete bollocks or I don't even know what they are."

"Be fair, mate.  They normally expect you to keep your head down and ignore everyone, but this term you've been doing everything you can to get noticed.  Now you're acting like you used to and they're wondering what's going to happen next."

"You mean the _Gryffindors_ are wondering what'll happen next," Harry shot at him.

Ron shrugged.  "They're the people I see the most of.  But even some of the others are looking a bit worried when you walk into the Great Hall."

Harry sniffed.  "They should mind their own business."  He considered for a moment.  "Do you have expectations of me?" he asked.

Ron grinned at him.  "Well yeah!"

Harry frowned, not getting it.  "What sort of thing?"

Ron rolled his eyes.  "Getting jumped on and snogged, mostly."

"Oh."  Harry relaxed.  "That's all right then."

"And I sort of expect you to tell me when stuff is bugging you, but I'm optimistic like that."

"You've spent too long around Granger, you're all girly about talking and stuff."

"I'm not so girly that I can't chuck you off this roof if you piss me off, Potter," Ron said amiably.  Harry ducked his head, grinning a little.  "But since we're on the subject, why don't you tell me all about how you _feel_."

"Well, mostly I'm feeling sort of pissed off and resentful, and sometimes I even have _issues_ about managing my anger.  How's that?"

"Trelawney'd tell you it's because Mars is in Sagittarius or something," Ron said in a serious tone, "but I'm just an ordinary bloke, so I reckon it's either because you eat too many sausages for breakfast, or you don't let off steam enough.  Have you been wanking regularly?  Letting all your male urges build up can be unhealthy, you know.  They overload your brain and make you walk with a limp."

They both sniggered.

"Don't worry, I wear my underpants loose so the air can circulate!"

"That's a really inspiring idea." 

Ron grabbed a couple of handfuls of Harry's robe and dragged him closer.  His lips were slightly chapped and both their noses were cold, but that wasn't important.  Snogging was an excellent way to get close enough to another person to put your hands in warm places.

"I reckon we're the only people who ever come up here," Harry murmured a few minutes later.  "What are the chances of being disturbed?"

Ron gave him a look.  "I'm fond of you, mate, but not fond enough to give you a blow job at the top of  a freezing cold tower covered in bird shit."

"Creature comforts!" Harry teased.

"Too bloody right!"

"That's okay," Harry said easily, and Ron gasped as one not-quite-warm-enough hand slipped through his fly and grasped his semi-hard length, stroking confidently.  "I'll give _you_ a blow job, then."

"Harry, cut it out!"  Ron tried to pull away, caught between a laugh and a shudder.  "No way, not up here!"

Harry gave a mocking sigh and withdrew his hand.  "Listen, Princess, when your handsome prince flies through your lonely tower window and offers to give you a bloody good shagging, you're supposed to say "Thank God you came!" and – "

"Don't you mean "Thank God you're _going_ tocome"?"

"Shut up, who's telling this story?  You're supposed to say "Thank God!" and drop your knickers, not moan about him leaving the window open and letting a draft in."

"Why do I have to be the princess and wear knickers?" Ron objected.  "Why can't I be the one to fly in and shag _you?_ "

"Do I look like the sort of bloke who let's himself get shut in a tower to mope until someone decides to come along and shag him?" Harry pointed out.

It occurred to Ron (rather disconcertingly at such a moment) that Harry managed to lock himself quite effectively in towers of his own making, but all he said was, "Do I, then?"

"Nah, you're right.  We've got to think of a better story."

"What about the one where the stud of an eastern prince keeps his favourite slave boy tied up naked in his tent to await his pleasure?"

Harry looked impressed.  "That's _almost_ kinky.  I'd have to be the eastern prince, though, because your hair's all the wrong colour."

"Handsome Celtic chief," Ron amended.

"Did they keep slaves?"

"Dunno – probably.  Does it matter?  _This_ handsome Celtic chief does – just one slave.  He took a fancy to black hair and green eyes."

"It gets nippy in Celtic countries," Harry pointed out, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

Ron grabbed him and gave him a hard kiss.  "Don't push your luck," he warned, when he'd released Harry again.  "We're going somewhere warmer."

 

xXx

 

Ron worried later about whether his encounter with Harry had made any difference to the other youth's mood.  It hadn't been his intention, when he accepted Harry's invitation to meet at the top of the tower, to turn things into an assignation instead.  On the other hand, nor had he wanted to set Harry's back up by harping on the subject of Sirius and the prospective Black heir if he seemed unwilling to talk.  Harry hadn't exactly been unwilling, but he had been defensive and Ron had allowed the conversation to slip away from the subject onto something Harry seemed happier dealing with.

If that meant an illicit encounter in the first reasonably comfortable yet concealed spot they could find, Ron wasn't complaining.  He did wish he'd handled the opportunity better, though, since chances to meet Harry weren't exactly sprouting out of their respective timetables at every turn.

And yet … when they parted Harry did seem more cheerful and positive.  It was hard to tell when it was just the two of them together, but Ron thought that the mask of indifference might have developed a hairline crack or two.

To a certain extent he was right.  There had been a time when Harry could have maintained the rigidly indifferent exterior indefinitely – indeed, had had no choice in the matter, given his difficult relationships with his family and godparents, not to mention his fellow Slytherins.  That time was past, though; having spent six months or more in far more amiable and supportive circumstances, going back to his previous enclosed existence was beyond him.

Harry wasn't yet ready to deal with the problem of Sirius, Remus and Miss Pettifer, either face to face or inside his own head, but he was ready to relax his own guard again, just a little.  Enough that dealing with the day to day details of his life wasn't an exercise in emotional rigidity.

On the Sunday morning Harry was summoned to another duelling lesson.  He was pleased to discover Ron waiting for him in the Lesser Great Hall, alongside Professor Dumbledore and, more surprisingly, Andromeda Tonks.  Harry hadn't duelled against her before and he was intrigued both by her presence and the possibilities this new opponent suggested.

"Do you have permission to come to the school during term-time, Ma'am?" he asked, forgetting his reserve and manners for once.

"Madam Tonks will be attending a meeting of the Hogwarts Scholarship Society later today," Professor Dumbledore said, before she could reply.  "She has very kindly agreed to arrive a little early - by accident, of course."

"Ministry-approved portkeys are so unreliable," she remarked, dryly humorous, making Ron grin.

"And regrettably susceptible to tampering," the Headmaster added, looking at them over the top of his spectacles.  "Unscrupulous persons may alter the timing of them with very little effort."

"I'll have to remember that," Harry remarked.

"I'm sure you will.  In the meantime, shall we begin?  I feel quite uncommonly vigorous today, so I shall take friend Petuarius's usual role of referee and instructor, should the need arise."

Harry and Ron discovered that Mrs. Tonks was a talented duellist, economical in her use of curses and decidedly sneaky in her tactics.  It was difficult to determine how powerful a witch she was, for she never seemed to commit more power to a spell than was absolutely necessary while nevertheless also always seeming to have the power she needed at her fingertips.  She was more than capable of taking on two opponents at once, although Harry thought that she found it an interesting and instructive challenge to her abilities, and when eventually he did catch her out she claimed it was because she was tiring rather than from any deficiency in magic or slip in concentration.

Afterwards, when Mrs. Tonks had taken herself off to join various other witches and wizards of the Society for their meeting, Harry was preparing to leave with Ron when Professor Dumbledore held him back.

"Mr. Weasley will be able to meet with you later, I'm sure," he said with a certain inflexibility in his tone.  Ron took the hint and reluctantly left without his friend.

Harry eyed Dumbledore warily when they were alone, wondering if he was due another rebuke or whether the Headmaster wanted to talk to him about the situation with Sirius.  Dumbledore didn't look vexed with him however.

"Will you step through to my private office, Harry?" he asked courteously.

Still wary, Harry followed him through to the little room that, like Professor Flitwick's, seemed primarily to be a repository for mountains of scrolls and old books.  To his alarm, Professor Snape was waiting there for them.

"Please close the door behind you," Dumbledore requested in the same polite tone.

Harry did as he was bidden but stayed close beside it, just in case a quick exit became necessary.  Snape was his usual saturnine self, although his eyes seemed to become more hooded when he saw the way Harry positioned himself next to the door.

Dumbledore came straight to the point.  "Harry, you may recall from our talk at the beginning of term that one of the things it seemed likely would prove useful to you was lessons in the management of pain.  You remember why, of course."

"To help me deal with the pain when Voldemort's nearby," Harry replied, still eyeing Snape.  It didn't seem to him that his Head of House's presence coupled with the choice of topic boded well for him.

"Precisely."  Dumbledore regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.  "I have discussed the matter with Professor Snape and we believe it will be possible to simulate the experience under controlled conditions in a way that will enable you to became accustomed to it and learn techniques to block it to a certain extent.  Unfortunately, as we discussed before, Harry, it will be a rather unpleasant ordeal for you, especially in the beginning.  Consequently, I have to ask you to give your consent to this before we go any further.  It would be most unethical to proceed with this as though it was an ordinary academic lesson.  Are you willing to continue?"

Harry didn't like the idea of it being Snape who would conduct these 'lessons' but he also didn't think he had a lot of choice.  If it was possible to prevent himself being incapacitated just by Voldemort's presence, then he had to try regardless of how unpleasant it might be.

Which was not to say that he didn't experience some severe qualms as he followed Snape down to his office in the dungeons.  And the qualms grew stronger as Snape led the way into his personal research laboratory at the back.

Harry had been there before on a number of occasions.  It was usually the safest place for Snape to teach him Occlumency without fear of interruption – accidental or deliberate.  It was a room filled with things like bookcases of arcane spell and potions books (glass-fronted, but charmed to be unbreakable), shelves full of boxes, jars and bottles of ingredients (also charmed to be damage-proof), racks of equipment, a long laboratory bench inset with places for burners, sinks, and stone cutting surfaces, and, taking up the whole of the back wall, there were great glass tanks filled with snakes and lizards.

Harry was not at ease around snakes.  Being able to talk to them meant that he was more aware of their alien mindset than most, and he would have preferred not to be.

Leaving Harry standing just inside the doorway, Snape went straight to a cupboard in the corner behind his desk and tapped the doors with his wand.  When they were open Harry could see that the cupboard was filled with row upon row of narrow shelves containing tiny bottles.  Some of them were opaque, made of either ceramic or stone, some were made of glass so dark that nothing could be seen of the contents, while others were clear and filled with liquids that covered a full spectrum of colours and degrees of transparency.

Harry wasn't stupid.  If these tiny bottles were locked away even in Snape's private rooms, where no one else might be expected to find them (let alone a student), then some of them at least must be poisons.

There had been an occasion, not so very long ago, when Snape had threatened to put Veritaserum in Harry's pumpkin juice when he wasn't looking.  There had been occasions in Potions lessons when he'd threatened to test some pupils' less than successful potions on them (mostly Neville Longbottom, but he wasn't the only one by a long shot).  Snape didn't make empty threats. 

And the fact was that while Dumbledore might place his complete trust in Professor Snape, Harry didn't.  Not entirely.

"If you think I'm going to stand here and let you feed me poisons, you've got another think coming," he said bluntly, when Snape returned with a handful of the bottles.

"I don't believe your opinion was invited, Potter," Snape returned indifferently, as he lined the bottles up on the edge of the bench.

"I'm seventeen," Harry retorted.  "It doesn't have to be invited."

"If you genuinely desire to arm yourself against the Dark Lord, I strongly suggest you do as you are told," Snape said, giving him a sharp look.  "Only an incurable moron would assume that the contents of these vessels is merely _poison_ , with no attempt to understand the subtle properties of each mixture.  All of them induce excruciating pain.  And since you seem to believe me capable of committing murder or other hideous deeds upon your person in the full knowledge of the Headmaster, permit me to point out that all of them have effective antidotes."

"I don't care," Harry said, starting to grow angry.  "You're not feeding me poisons.  Not without someone like Mad-Eye Moody here too, to check on what you're giving me.  Besides, it's not the ones that could kill me that I'm worried about.  It's the ones that can _bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses_ that bother me."

Snape seemed to go very still for a moment, staring at Harry with an expression as close to surprise as he ever came.

"Well, well, Potter," he said softly.  "Can it be possible that you actually _listen_ in my lessons after all?"

"No - I just read the Gormbridge Notes version," Harry said before he could stop himself.

Snape's eyes narrowed … and Harry calmly brushed aside the attempted mental invasion, offering up an image of the Giant Squid basking in the lake for his professor's delectation instead.

"You can use charms or curses or hexes on me," Harry said after a moment, "but you're not poisoning me.  Not without someone else here who knows what he's doing to keep an eye on things."

Snape's dark eyes seemed to glitter for a moment.  Then he said something that took Harry by surprise.

"Interesting.  Perhaps you'll survive after all."

 

xXx

 

Even being limited to spells alone didn't eliminate Snape's ability to inflict pain, Harry discovered.  Not for the first time he decided it was an irony that wizard society had chosen to single out just three spells for Unforgivable status when there were so many others that could inflict almost equal damage … especially when one had the power and knowledge to overload the spell.  The object of the lesson was for Harry to acclimatise himself to varying levels of pain and mentally move past them, but it was difficult to tell if he achieved this.

Afterwards, feeling drained and shaky, Harry took a note from Snape to Madam Pomfrey and collected a Restorative Draught.  The matron was visibly enraged by what she read in the note (for once Harry hadn't had either the strength or interest to open it and see what Snape had written) and for a moment or two seemed to waver on the brink of bundling him into the nearest bed.  But the potion did its work and with great reluctance she told him to eat his dinner and have an early night, injunctions that he was quite willing to obey.

The following morning Harry mostly felt himself again, in spite of fairly disturbing dreams, and slipped into his usual Monday routine without difficulty.  He managed Transfiguration and Herbology quite well, and used his free lesson before dinner to catch up on the homework that should have been done the previous evening.

That evening Blaise returned from a prefects' meeting with a notice for the Slytherin board.  The following weekend would be the first Hogsmeade weekend for Third Years and above.  Harry wondered idly if he would be allowed to go or if he would have to attend more extracurricular training - a question which seemed to be answered the next morning when he received a courteous note from Father Marius, the curate at the Church of the Holy Bones, asking if Harry would meet him at St. Ronald's Church in Hogsmeade before lunch on Saturday for a review and rehearsal of the Confirmation service.

 _St._ _Ronald's?_   Harry narrowly avoided a sudden and inexplicable snigger at the breakfast table, but it was a close thing.  He was tempted to ask Blaise if there had really been a saint called Ronald, but decided it was too easy for the other Slytherin to get the wrong idea – or, worse, the right idea.  Instead he entered the appointment into his diary and sent an acknowledgement back to Father Marius.  Reluctantly he also made a note to himself to find his Bible and prayer books and go over his Confirmation papers again in preparation.  So far there didn't seem to be any new extra lessons inserted into the diary, but he didn't suppose that would last and in any case he had to wonder just how a visit to Hogsmeade, even if it was just to the church, would be managed.  Harry knew the workings of the Order well enough by now to know that Father Marius wouldn't be considered anything like adequate protection for him.  Presumably people would have to be mobilised to provide an unobtrusive guard.

Harry rather hoped that would mean Fred and George Weasley.  After George's rant at him during his last planned and guarded outing, he was in a mood to see Ron's twin brothers thoroughly inconvenienced, especially as he was starting to get a good idea of how they generally treated Ron.  He set off to Potions with this vengeful thought in mind and made it through a full morning of Professor Snape without undue incident.

After lunch he had Herbology, then a free lesson.  Herbology was a lesson that had grown progressively more difficult over the last couple of years, to the point where he now had to pay attention to what he was doing if he didn't want to lose any limbs; much of the Seventh Years' time was spent in the greenhouses that housed plants that consumed living flesh for a preference.  That afternoon Harry was engrossed in monitoring his Straining Balm Bush and working on several highly dangerous plant seedlings he was rearing when, to his shock, he felt something skitter across the surface his mind.

To someone who was regularly attacked by anyone from Lord Voldemort to Professor Dumbledore, the mental touch was very far from being a challenge; Harry had blocked and shunted it away before he even consciously registered it.  What startled him was the nature of the attempted invasion.  Snape, Dumbledore, Voldemort, Remus even, were all far more proficient Legilimens than this.  Dumbledore's mental touch was mildly ticklish; Snape's like a hot needle.  Voldemort was rough but businesslike. 

This mental touch was like the clumsy, sticky fingers of a impatient toddler grabbing for something.  And like a thwarted child they tried again – and again.  Harry tried to keep moving through his class-work as he always did even as he repeatedly blocked the mental assault, but he would have given a substantial sum of money at that moment to know just who was doing this to him.  The attempts weren't a genuine threat now that he had mastered Occlumency but it was distracting and Professor Sprout was heading in his direction to check on his progress.  Harry didn't think he'd be able to keep up his end of a conversation with this going on, and in desperation he threw a mental image of Voldemort at the invader, reasoning that it would frighten them off if anything would.

It worked – he actually had a sense of the other person reeling away in shock – but he was still distracted as he discussed his Balm Bush with the Professor, wanting to study his classmates and try to determine who had done it.

It had to be one of them … didn't it?  Granted Voldemort could make these attempts across hundreds of miles, but Voldemort had a direct link to Harry; Professor Dumbledore and Professor Snape had to be in the same room as Harry and in fairly close proximity to him, and Remus had to be touching him, before they could access his mind.  Whoever his current assailant was, he or she certainly didn't have the skill of those others.  They _had_ to be in the greenhouse with him, or just outside the glass at the very most.  Harry glanced reflexively at the windows nearest to him but couldn't see anyone lurking out there.  No, it had to be someone inside the greenhouse with him, and probably someone not too far away.

And there was a limited number of candidates.  Harry rather doubted that Tony Goldstein or Terry Boot would be interested in rummaging in his mind and likewise Orla Quirke or Lisa Turpin.  Daphne Greengrass might have fancied a try, but the likelihood of her even knowing such a thing was possible was remote.  Pansy Parkinson wasn't anything like a good enough witch to attempt it and to suggest that Vincent Crabbe could master a skill like Legilimancy was a joke.

Which left Malfoy.  Had he been asked before the summer holiday, Harry would have been willing to swear that the other youth wasn't capable of learning something like Legilimancy, but now he wasn't so sure.  And the mental touch itself fitted with Malfoy's personality only too well; little finesse, only an impatient desire to grab what he wanted.

Which was … what?

Well, take your pick.  Harry's head was crammed to leaking point with things that he could well imagine Malfoy would want to see – everything from humiliating incidents from his childhood, to the details of his recent and current extracurricular training, and membership of the Order of the Phoenix.  With a burst of muscle-twitching paranoia Harry suddenly wondered if, by making Lucius Malfoy remove Draco from school for a whole term, the Headmaster had somehow played into Voldemort's hands.  After all, Draco had supposedly spent the summer term learning Russian in preparation for his admittance into Durmstrang – but whose word did they have for that, really?  Igor Karkaroff, the headmaster of Durmstrang?  Lucius Malfoy himself?  Draco could have been doing anything, really, including becoming a Death Eater and learning all manner of techniques for spying upon Harry Potter.

This wasn't exactly a new idea for Harry, but it was the first time he'd given it any serious credence and it chilled him.  Somehow it felt like a far greater threat having Draco Malfoy trying to rummage in his mind when they shared a dormitory than it did fending off Voldemort's occasional attacks from a distance.

And _was_ he fending off Voldemort's attacks?  He'd been congratulating himself recently on having mastered Occlumency, but only the previous night he'd had a pretty bad nightmare.  He'd assumed it had been a regular sort of nightmare – God knew he had enough of those – but what if it hadn't been?  What if his mind was actually open to attack and he didn't realise it?

The lesson was over and Harry was packing his bag on autopilot, frantically trying to think of what to do, when his fingers brushed against his diary.  As though the touch was a summons the fat little book burst to life, vibrating against his hand.  Deeply relieved, even though he didn't know what the new entry would contain, Harry dawdled in the greenhouse, putting away his tools and plants until the rest of his classmates had left, then grabbed up his things and hurried down the path in the opposite direction until he came to a spot behind Greenhouse 5 where he could hide behind a tall stack of terracotta plant pots.  He pulled out the impatiently vibrating diary and flipped it open.

In the slot directly after dinner a now-familiar image of Fawkes blossomed into life, indicating a meeting with Professor Dumbledore.  Instead of vanishing again in a trail of sparkles, though, this time the phoenix paused, folding his wings fussily and peering at Harry with bead-like eyes.  Harry experienced a wistful desire to make a proper three-dimensional puppet of a phoenix, although how he would reproduce the magnificent colours and light-effects of Fawkes's feathers he couldn't guess.  He could ask Professor Flitwick, perhaps, and in the meantime he resolved to take his cardboard cut-out phoenix with him that evening and show it to Fawkes. 

 

xXx

 

Fawkes seemed to like the puppet, watching intently and making curious little noises deep in his throat as Harry made it flutter about.  Harry felt more at peace in the ten minutes he spent alone with the phoenix than he had in weeks, especially when Fawkes permitted him the privilege of gently stroking his feathers.

"He is the most soothing of company, isn't he?"

Harry looked around: Professor Dumbledore was standing quietly in the doorway to his private study, watching them.

"Yes, sir," he said, wondering how long the Headmaster had been there.

"I think I may also say that Fawkes is the best judge of character I have known in a very long life, Harry."  Dumbledore looked at Harry over the top of his spectacles.  "I have heard people refer to him as my _pet_ and _Dumbledore's bird_.  They are gravely mistaken; he is no belonging of mine.  No one may possess a phoenix.  Fawkes chooses to grace me with his companionship, but he comes and goes as he pleases.  He would not be here if he didn't want to be, and he would not have been waiting for you today had he not wished to see you."

Harry stared at Dumbledore, taken aback by this statement, but after a moment the professor smiled.

"I think we may safely assume that he likes you," he added, and Fawkes startled Harry even more by giving an odd little warble that made the air quiver for a moment.

"I like him," Harry said after a moment, looking at the phoenix.

"That is because you have excellent taste," Dumbledore approved.  He gestured to the doorway.  "Shall we begin our lesson?"

Nodding a respectful acknowledgement to Fawkes, Harry followed Dumbledore into the study, fiddling nervously with the phoenix puppet all the while.

"Professor - " he began, as they took their usual seats.

"Yes, Harry?"

"Someone tried to get into my mind today while I was in Herbology."

Dumbledore looked at him sharply.  "Indeed?  May I ask whom?"

"I'm not sure," Harry admitted.  "It wasn't Lord Voldemort.  It was someone else - someone who didn't seem to know what he was doing."

"Interesting ...."  Dumbledore murmured.  "Do go on."

Harry explained the whole incident, trying not to leave anything out.  When he was finished, he added anxiously, "My shields haven't slipped, have they, sir?  I blocked it this time, but if it was someone in my class - "

"You believe it to be Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore stated mildly.

Harry paused.  "I don't know, but it's more likely to be him than any of the others, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"I can't think of anyone else who'd want to."

"Which is not to say that there is no one else who might have a reason to try."  Dumbledore gave him a grave look.  "You have no proof, Harry.  Making accusations without proof is a dangerous course to take."

"I wasn't planning to accuse him of anything," Harry said.

"Taking action without proof is even more dangerous."

"I wasn't going to do that either," Harry said, rather aggrieved at the suggestion. 

Dumbledore began to smile.  "As you thwarted his efforts, the matter would seem to have resolved itself for the present.  And I can assure you that your mind is quite well closed, and so far as I am aware has been so for some time now, so you need have no concerns for the future provided that you remain vigilant."

This wasn't precisely what Harry had been hoping to hear, but on the other hand he didn't know what he _had_ been expecting Dumbledore to say or do, so he reluctantly let the matter go and put his mind to concentrating on what he felt sure was to be yet another fruitless Legilimancy lesson.

It was only when he was packing his textbook away and getting ready to leave that he remembered Father Marius's note and mentioned it to Dumbledore.  The Headmaster was unsurprised.

"Yes, Father Marius spoke to me about this a little while ago," he said as they walked back into his main office.  "I believe you may proceed with your usual level of caution on this occasion.  The Order will ensure that there is extra security."

"What about when I'm actually Confirmed, Professor?" Harry asked curiously.

"As I'm sure Father Marius has already explained, Confirmations are usually held during the church's Patronal Day celebration.  This is an important service in the church's calendar and the majority of the normal congregation may be expected to be present," Dumbledore said.  "Unfortunately, St. Ursula's Day  is less than a week away and far too close for the arrangements to be made, so I imagine we will now be looking at All Saints Day - the first of November, which is another important date.  While there will undoubtedly be a risk involved, it is a risk we feel is manageable.  Have no concerns on that score, Harry."

Harry nodded and let it go.  He was crossing the room to the door, when he remembered Fawkes and diverted to make his farewells to the phoenix.  Fawkes accepted the tribute with magisterial tranquillity, but as Harry turned to leave he suddenly sat up on his perch and shook himself comprehensively. 

A single loose feather the length of Harry's hand floated gracefully to the floor and Harry bent to pick it up.  He offered it to the Headmaster, but Dumbledore shook his head.

"That is a gift for you, I believe," he said kindly.

"A gift," Harry repeated, surprised.

"Oh yes!"  Dumbledore smiled.  "The cycle of a phoenix between Burning Days is not long enough for him to need to moult, and once his feathers begin to drop before a Burning they are worthless.  Fawkes does, however, occasionally choose to drop a feather or two as a gift or a favour to a friend.  Keep it safe.  Phoenix feathers have extraordinary magical and mythical powers, you know."

Harry looked back at Fawkes, who blinked at him knowingly.

"Thank you," he said.

 

xXx

 

Harry carefully laid the feather between the pages of his diary to keep it neat and safe.  Seen up close it was an item of extraordinary beauty, the brilliant scarlets and golds multifaceted and shimmering when the feather was turned to catch different sources of light, and casting a glorious array of lights across every surface.  More than that, touching it made him feel calm in the same way that seeing Fawkes always did.

This wasn't something that people needed to know he had, he decided.  He would show it to Ron, but anyone else seeing it could only lead to questions about how he had come by it and besides, he didn't want it to be damaged or stolen.

In the diary it would be safe and close by him.

 

xXx

 

Harry used his free lesson the following day to practice Animating his snake in preparation for his lesson with Professor Flitwick that evening. 

This was a lot tougher than manipulating the dragon puppet, which Harry couldn't help thinking was insane; surely flight ought to be more complicated than simply making a model snake pull itself upright from a coiled position?  But in comparison to the dragon which had a limited number of joints in its wings and tail, the snake was a nightmare of tiny 'bones' all strung together and, without the tendon-like network of threads the dragon possessed, only too inclined to all move in opposing directions given half a chance.

And that was just the main part of the body.  There was the head to contend with, including its moving jaw and tongue, and for a snake a great deal of its control and balance was actually centred in the latter section of the tail.  It didn't help that Harry had constructed the skeleton out of balsa wood, for lightness.  This wasn't a mistake he would make again; the extra weight of a denser wood would have helped with both balance and motion.  At the moment it was too light and flimsy, slipping out of his control most frustratingly.  And the skull was an almost solid piece of balsa which was threatening to overbalance the entire puppet.

None of this would have mattered much if he'd simply been Animating the snake, of course, but when it came to separating consciousness it all began to matter in a big way.  Loose joints and a top-heavy head were all extra things to think about when constructing a programme of movements.  Still, Harry hoped this skill would come.  At the moment there was nothing for it but to keep trying, and his concentration on the problem was such that he missed lunch and was late to Transfiguration afterwards. 

He lost Slytherin a couple of points for this; only a couple but he winced all the same, because the last thing Slytherin needed right now was to have to make up yet more negative points.  Harry hoped to God they could make up a good total in their first Quidditch match of the season, because as things stood they'd already lost the House Cup this year before a full term was over.  Fortunately his Transfiguration homework was ready to hand in and the last batch was returned by Professor McGonagall with a good mark.  That was something.

The missed meal was beginning to make itself felt when he climbed the ladder to Professor Trelawney's classroom at the end of the day.  Harry took his seat next to Ron and found himself eyeing all the teapots and teacups on the shelves around the room longingly.  He could have murdered someone just for a cup of tea at the moment, but unfortunately Tasseomancy was only covered during Third Year.  He knew things were bad when Professor Trelawney announced that they would continue with the reading of entrails and even that failed to stop his stomach rumbling.

Ron slid something wrapped in parchment across the table under the cover of opening their textbooks.  Harry palmed it without looking, quite practiced at doing this after two terms of illicit friendship, and managed to unfold the paper without taking his eyes off an alarming illustration in his book of the various sacrificial knives used for augury.  The contents of the packet turned out to be a slightly squashed flapjack.

Surprised, Harry looked up at Ron, who pretended to tut at him silently before turning back to his own book.

That was another thing to think about.  Harry wasn't oblivious; he'd begun to notice that Ron seemed to be taking care of him of him lately, and while he didn't mind in the slightest – quite the opposite really – he did wonder why his friend would want to do it.  It seemed like an awful lot of work.  Of course, he cared about Ron too, but more in the order of worrying about his safety than wondering if he was eating properly.  He wondered if this made him a bad friend; his experience of relationships generally and of friendships in particular was so narrow that he really had no idea.  He wasn't even sure how he would go about trying to look out for Ron's general welfare; it would be easy enough if they were living together, but when they were in opposing houses at school and separated for much of the time it was another prospect entirely.  He wondered how on earth Ron managed it.  Perhaps it was a Weasley gene or something.

Eating the flapjack without being caught took a lot of concentration and he muffed up a reading of a sample arrangement of entrails as a result, but Harry didn't consider himself any kind of Seer even on a good day, when flapjacks weren't a consideration, so he wasn't particularly bothered when Professor Trelawney took it as another opportunity to predict Death in his immediate future.

Ron's flapjack had the happy effect of ensuring that Harry didn't try to climb onto one of the serving dishes to eat the roast when he finally made it to dinner that evening.  It was better not to have too heavy a meal before a lesson with Professor Flitwick, as he needed to concentrate.

"So, any new predictions from the Great Oracle?" Blaise asked, as Harry helped himself to more roast potatoes.

"Eh?  Oh, yes – more death," Harry said, more interested in his meal than conversation.

"Nice to know she hasn't succumbed to pessimism."  Blaise remarked cynically.  "Or that you have, for that matter."

"She's been telling me I'm going to die a horrible death since I was thirteen," Harry replied indifferently.  "It's sort of lost its bite now, you know?"

Later, Harry felt that he could have done better in his lesson with Flitwick.  Despite full concentration and prior practice - and the expense of a considerable amount of sweat - he was still having trouble controlling the individual elements of his snake and its movements were definitely not as serpentine as he could have wished.  But Professor Flitwick remained encouraging.

"You're doing very well, Mr. Potter," he assured him.  "You make great progress with this - separation of consciousness is an exceptionally difficult part of the discipline to master, taking all of one's strength and concentration.  I would be very surprised had you mastered it in such a short time."

"I think it's partly because of the model, Professor," Harry confessed.  "It's not as well-made as it could be.  And I don't think something made of chunks of wood is ever going to be as smooth-moving as a real snake.  Maybe the model needs to be made of something else."

"Perhaps, perhaps," Flitwick agreed, nodding.  "What would you suggest could make it more fluid?"

Harry hesitated, but he felt the time had come to start asking tough questions if he wanted answers.  He went to his bag and pulled out a sealed jar he'd taken from his school trunk earlier.

"This is one of the automata we found at Black Manor," he told Professor Flitwick a little apologetically.  "I know it's probably made of something illegal, but I thought maybe there could be some clues to how I could make a better _legal_ model."

Gaius Black's red-eyed snake lay coiled at the bottom of the jar, and when Harry put it on the corner of Flitwick's desk the creature reared up and struck the side of the container viciously.

"I see," Professor Flitwick said, eyeing it with some disapproval.  "Well, Mr. Potter, you are quite correct that this is an illegal automaton.  I've already deAnimated a number of Black's experiments and this would appear to be more of the same.  Perhaps it _is_ time we looked at these things more closely though.  What can you tell me about the construction of this ... creature?"

"It seems to be made sand, sir," Harry said, relieved that the little professor wasn't reacting too badly to the appearance of an object Harry probably shouldn't have been in possession of.  "That would make it a lot more fluid, but I don't see how I could separate consciousness from something like that.  Would you treat sand as one whole limb, or would every grain have to be Animated separately?"

"One would primarily manipulate the container around the sand, Mr. Potter," Flitwick explained.  "However, it would be impossible to control the movement of the sand within the container once separation of consciousness was effected unless some other medium was involved to bind the particles - generally a liquid of some kind.  This becomes problematic because liquid is one of the most difficult elements to Animate, as you already know, and when added to another difficult element such as sand the Animation can become unstable."

Harry's brow furrowed.  "How is this snake possible then, sir?  It seems to be just sand, without a container or binding at all.  Is there some sort of Dark magic involved to overcome the problems?"

"In a manner of speaking, there is."  Professor Flitwick sighed and picked up the jar.  "The first question you must ask yourself, Mr. Potter, is - what manner of sand is used in this creature's construction?"

"I couldn't tell without opening the jar, Professor."

"You are wise not to have done so.  The sand in this construction must have been at least partially made up of the ground-up bones of snakes.  The use of snake bones in potions is, of course, quite common, but it is absolutely forbidden in Animation.  Can you tell me why?"

"I'm not certain, sir, but I got the impression that it was considered to be too close to necromancy," Harry said.

"That is precisely the reason," Flitwick said with a stern nod.  "And this is why, Mr. Potter: the bones of dead creatures retain a memory of their living form and former existence, and when they are brought into contact with an elemental power such as Animation they take on a half-life that is dangerously close to resurrecting the dead.  Raising the dead, whether human or animal, is an abomination that is utterly forbidden to all witches and wizards by every authority in the western hemisphere and many of those beyond.  What lies beyond life in the realms of death is not for mere mortals to tamper with.  Do you understand that?"

"Yes, sir."  And in that Harry was quite sincere.  He had no interest in knowing what was beyond death before his own time came, and no desire to bring back those who had gone on to that place.

"This creature is perilously close to being just such an abomination, Mr. Potter," Professor Flitwick told him earnestly.  "The bones it was created with remember their former shape and life and when Gaius Black Animated it his magic awakened that memory and used it to help forge the creature into a whole, presenting an accurate simulacrum of serpentine movement."

"I see."  Harry stared at it, feeling repulsed.  "And was the - the powdered bone bound together with something like a liquid to keep it in shape?"

"It was - most likely a potion of particular properties that would tie into the mixture of materials in the sand.  There are a number of such methods in sources I have studied, but they are all exceedingly Dark in both their construction and intended purposes, Mr. Potter.  Only the most advanced students of our discipline are permitted access to these historical documents, generally wizards and witches of the highest moral fibre."

A _potion?_   Harry's mind suddenly lit up, as some vague ideas he'd had weeks before came flooding back and started fitting into a logical order.  And a horrifying memory resurfaced, of a graveyard in night time, gathered Death Eaters and something made in a cauldron that included bone, snake venom, the blood of an enemy and sacrificed human flesh.

"Now, Mr. Potter," Professor Flitwick broke in upon Harry's thoughts.  "I think this would be a good moment to show you how to deAnimate such constructs, rendering them harmless ...."

Harry came back to himself with a start.

"Yes, please, Professor," he said fervently.

 

xXx

 

It couldn't be possible, Harry thought, when he left Professor Flitwick's offices later that evening.  For one thing, it was a big stretch to go from a creature constructed from ground-up bones and retaining a facsimile of life to a person constructed from a number of elements including bone, blood and flesh who actually was alive and retaining the soul of his original self.  Besides, even if such a thing was possible, there still needed to be the intervention of an Animator to make the construct work and there had never been any suggestion that the Death Eaters involved had any of them been Animators.  Harry had witnessed what had happened personally and he didn't remember seeing any Animation.

Besides, if there had then Lord Voldemort's body would be nominally under the control of another person - and, indeed, vulnerable to that person - which Harry knew couldn't possibly be the case, because Voldemort of all people would never tolerate such a situation.

Well ... not unless he'd killed them directly afterwards, which was a possibility Harry supposed.

The only other explanation was that Voldemort himself was an Animator.  Harry wondered if this was possible.  But surely Flitwick or Dumbledore would have mentioned it by now?

Perhaps not.  Harry didn't trust people not to withhold information from him for their own purposes, although he rather doubted Flitwick would do such a thing, at least.  And Voldemort did have a history of sorts in necromancy.  There were the _inferi_ for example, although it had never been made clear whether he made them himself or whether someone else in his retinue did.

Feeling like his brain was about to start leaking (this was becoming tiresomely common for Harry), he took himself off to the library and sat in one of the private study carrels for the final half hour before curfew jotting down his ideas.

 

 _1.  It's possible to create more accurate automata by using bones of real animals and binding them together with dark magic through a potion._

 _2\. Voldemort was brought back to life by putting human bones, flesh and blood into a cauldron with other ingredients._

 _3.  But making an automaton still takes Animation._

 _4\. There is manual animation that any wizard can use if he knows how._

 _5.  Voldemort would not want someone else to be in control of his body._

 _6\. They could separate consciousness and he could kill them afterwards._

 _7.  That would still take an Animator, but manual animation doesn't involve separation of consciousness._

 _8\. Voldemort could be an Animator himself, or he could be using manual animation of some kind._

 _9.  Which still doesn't explain why he is really alive, when even an automaton made of bones isn't really alive._

 

Harry paused, sucking on the end of his quill thoughtfully.  He added a couple more notes:

 

 _Possibilities:_

 _1\. There's an Animator among the Death Eaters.  Who?  Animation is a Black family gift - Bellatrix?  Narcissa?  Draco?  If so, why are they still alive?_

 _2\. Voldemort is an Animator.  (Note - ask Dumbledore.)_

 _3\. Voldemort or someone else is using manual animation.  Possible?_

 _4\. What about his soul?  Is this proper necromancy?_

Harry stared down at these notes for a moment.  Finally he added:

 

 _Is any of this possible?_

 

He left it at that, but the trouble was that he thought he already knew the answer to his question.

Yes - just because he couldn't see how didn't mean that it couldn't be possible.  Which was a very disturbing idea.

 

xXx

 

The following day went relatively smoothly.  Harry had Herbology again, but there were no further attempts at mental intrusion, although this was possibly because he was being extra vigilant.

The temptation was to use his free period that day to do some kind of research into Dark potions and Animation, especially now that he had a bootleg copy of the book on manual animation.  Harry resisted this, though, telling himself that he needed a break.  Instead he used the time to work on his homework, and while it took quite a bit of self-discipline to keep his mind on that and not on other, more interesting topics, somehow he managed it.

In the afternoon he had double DADA which, while having some interesting moments, still fell considerably short of his intensive lessons over the summer.  Harry had felt increasingly frustrated with this class ever since Fifth Year anyway; while that had been an outstanding example of just how bad things could get when the Ministry chose to interfere, the standard syllabus wasn't a great deal more helpful and when combined with a mediocre teacher such as they had now it seemed almost designed to kill off any tendency towards independent thought or initiative in the pupils studying it.  In fact, so far as Harry could see, the intention was to foster the idea that the Dark Arts were something that presented a minor threat to safety on a par with burglary and mugging in the street - regrettable, but only perpetrated very occasionally by minor criminals and (the suggestion here was very subtle) undesirable elements in society such as werewolves.

Any attempt to associate the Dark Arts with serious threats such as Dark Lords and Death Eaters was placed firmly in the context of history, with no recognition that it could occur in a contemporary arena or, indeed, that it was already a serious threat to the continued existence of contemporary wizard society.

All of this was calculated to annoy someone like Harry almost past bearing.  He couldn't understand the point of defence lessons if they weren't teaching the class to defend themselves against real threats, and only the knowledge that he was far from being alone in this opinion prevented him giving up in the classroom altogether.

The urge to be flippant in his DADA homework later was harder to resist, when some of the questions related to the reasoning behind making certain curses illegal.  The temptation was to make personal comments about the Minister, and Harry was still wrestling with his worser self when Blaise returned to the Slytherin common room with another notice which he pinned up on the board.

Quite willing to abandon his homework for a while, Harry wandered over to look.

 

 _For the attention of all SIXTH AND SEVENTH YEAR pupils -_

 _Classes in Magical Ethics will be held at regular intervals over the coming months, beginning at 2.00 pm on Saturday 1st November.  These sessions are COMPULSORY and exceptions will only be made with the authorisation of Madam Pomfrey and the relevant Head of House_

 _All Sixth and Seventh Year pupils will present themselves promptly at the Great Hall at the appointed time on the appointed days.  Please come prepared to make notes and take part in open discussions._

 _Professor M. McGonagall_

 _Deputy Headmistress_

 

"Magical Ethics?" Malfoy said, peering over Harry's shoulder.  He made a scornful noise.  "What's the point of that?"

"Maybe they think some of us'll be tempted to do something unethical," Harry suggested dryly.  "Can't think where they'd get _that_ idea."

"Well, I'm not wasting my free time on it," Malfoy stated, and he turned away.

Harry let this pass.  He'd be held responsible if Malfoy and any of his supporters didn't turn up, of course, but November was a little way off yet.  He'd deal with problems like that nearer the time.  He looked at Blaise, though, and raised a brow.

"Might be interesting," was Blaise's cool assessment.

"Yeah, that's what I think."  Harry said this emphatically enough that the other Slytherins milling around by the board got the message.

"Why do you think they've suddenly decided to hold classes in ethics, though?" Blaise asked quietly a few minutes later, when they'd settled down to their homework again.  Millicent Bulstrode and a couple of other seniors were seated at the same table and Harry found himself the focus of their attention.

He hesitated, considering his response.  He knew why _he_ thought the class had been arranged; it was simply too pat upon him telling Dumbledore about the mental attack he'd suffered in Herbology.  But he couldn't tell the other Slytherins that.  Finally he settled for a shrug.

"There's a lot of stuff going on lately, here and outside," he offered.  "I reckon Dumbledore wants to make a point.  It's not about him thinking we need it - it's about him wanting us to _know_ that he thinks we need it."  Sceptical looks.  "Look, I don't know what goes on in Dumbledore's head," he continued impatiently, "but they've run classes in ethics at Hogwarts before.  It used to be an optional extra, my godfather took it when he was here."

For some reason that seemed to satisfy them, and they went back to their homework after a pause - all except Blaise, who was watching Harry again curiously.

"I reckon it's a wasted effort," Harry told him.  "The people who really need teaching about ethics aren't going to be listening anyway."

"You mean Malfoy."  It wasn't a question.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I'll let you know when I've thought about it a bit more," was the unexpected reply, and Blaise returned to his books.

 

xXx

 

St. Ronald's was a tiny, quirky little church on the edge of Hogsmeade.  It was set within a well-kept churchyard surrounded by apple and pear trees and enclosed by a low grey stone wall, and included a small cemetery occupied largely by the tombs of a number of local pureblooded families.  Most of them, Harry was interested to see, were stone memorials that formed the roofs of underground mausoleums; they had narrow, uneven steps going down to low entrances eight to ten feet below ground level.

Like the Church of the Holy Bones, the physical structure of St. Ronald's looked mildly improbable, with a slate-tiled roof that sloped almost to ground level at some points and inset stained glass windows.  It had a little porch that led to an ancient pair of iron-studded and banded doors and when he cautiously stepped inside there were beeswax candles floating everywhere to relieve the gloom.  To Harry's relief, however, there were no decorations made of human bones.  From the size of the appointments - just eight small pews laid out four on each side of the aisle - this wasn't a church that had ever had a huge congregation.  Harry wondered if the majority of residents in Hogsmeade were White Goddess pagans or of some other religion.  He vaguely recalled hearing that Tony Goldstein had family living in Hogsmeade, which suggested there must be a synagogue somewhere nearby.

Father Marius was sitting in a pew right at the front of the church, talking quietly to another Omnis Arcanum priest, an older man with a formidable rusty brown beard.  The two of them stood up when Harry approached, the second priest watching Harry through sharp, scrutinising blue eyes.

"There you are, Harry," Father Marius said cheerfully.  "Father Alasdair, may I introduce Henry Potter the Younger."

Harry bowed to the priest, then belatedly remembered the proper form and took a step forward, dropping to one knee and kissing the ring on Father Alasdair's outstretched hand.  He didn't much like this particular ritual, but under the circumstances it seemed better to him just to do it, rather than giving a bad impression to the priest unnecessarily.

"Be welcome to St. Ronald's, my son, and may God bless you on your coming Confirmation," Father Alasdair said.  He had a deep voice with a warm Highland accent that reminded Harry of his mother's friend, Morag MacDuff.

"Thank you, sir," Harry said, getting up.

"I'll let the two of you be about your business, Marius," the priest continued.  "I'll be in the presbytery if you need me."

"Thank you, Father."

When he was gone, Father Marius turned to Harry with a grin.  "So - how's the term going so far?"

Harry thought about the so-called riot, his numerous clashes with Malfoy and others, his weekend in the infirmary, and all his extra lessons.  "Oh, you know.  Quiet."

The curate chuckled.  "Good stuff!  Right, let's get started, shall we?  It'd be good to be done here before lunch, if we can.  Brought your books?"

"Yes ...."

"Great.  We'll have a quick run through the things you'll need to recite and the order of the service, then we'll have a practice run for the actual Confirmation."  Father Marius rubbed his hands.  "I've been looking forward to this - it's not often I get to play at being the Bishop!"

Harry gave him a bemused look.  "Do you _want_ to be a bishop?"

The curate's smile became rather wry.  "I should be so lucky!  There are only two bishops in the British Isles and they're both relatively young wizards, so by the time a position becomes vacant I'll probably be ... well, a lot older than I am now!  Besides, bishops are hand-picked by the Patriarch.  Since he's a fair distance away, you have to be more than a parish curate to get his attention."

"But won't you take over from Father Ignatius eventually?"

Father Marius shook his head.  "Unlikely.  There are other priests with more seniority than me.  Let's not talk about that, though!  Let's concentrate on your Creeds ...."

Harry surprised himself by remembering more than he thought he would.  His recitation of the two Creeds, Latin notwithstanding, was nearly perfect, as were his responses through the ceremony. 

"That's excellent," Father Marius said finally.  "I really do think you're ready for this.  I'll be able to tell the Bishop when I see him next week, then I'll let you know about the final arrangements."  He smiled at Harry.  "Perhaps I'll get noticed after all!  Father Ignatius would normally be doing all of this, but he isn't very well at the moment so I have to make the arrangements."

"Will he be all right for the service?" Harry asked, concerned.  He didn't have a lot to do with the elderly priest at Holy Bones, but he was a nice old man who'd always been kind to Harry.

"I hope so.  If he isn't, Father Mortimer from St. Mungo's Church in Diagon Alley will probably be asked to take his place and ... well, you don't really want him getting involved in your Confirmation, Harry."  Father Marius raised his brows.  "He's the Malfoys' usual priest."

"Great."

"I don't think that'll happen though.  It's just a cold - I'm sure Father Ignatius will be on his feet in no time."

"So what day do I get Confirmed?" Harry asked.  "Professor Dumbledore suggested All Saints Day."

"That's what I'm hoping for, but I'll let you know straight away as soon as I know."  Father Marius led Harry out of the church and slowly through the churchyard. "So, really - how are things?"

"It's been a bit up and down, but I'm okay," Harry replied.  "Really busy, of course."

"You're still doing some extracurricular training, aren't you?"

"Yeah ... I suppose that's not too bad, but there are a couple of things I could do without."

"What do you mean?"

"Professor Dumbledore's been trying to teach me Legilimancy but I don't really get it," Harry admitted.  "And there was the pain stuff with Snape - I know _why_ I need to do it, but he enjoys it a bit too much."

"Professor Snape?"  Father Marius looked surprised.  "I would have thought he was the last person to involve in your lessons!"

"He's been training me for ages," Harry said.  "Didn't you know?"

"No ... that is, I would have thought ... well, wasn't he a Death Eater himself once?"

"Yeah, but he's one of Dumbledore's people," Harry said.  "I thought you knew - he's a member of the Order too."

"No, I didn't."  Father Marius seemed to gather himself.  "Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  He works for Dumbledore, he's the logical choice if he genuinely left You Know Who's service.  And I don't know everyone in the Order, of course.  It's safer to keep people in ignorance of the full membership."

"I suppose.  But it's not like you'd tell anyone." 

"No, of course not."

They turned onto the path into the village. 

"Where are you going now?" Father Marius asked.  "I should think your afternoon is already booked up - are you heading straight back to school?"

"I've got a couple of things to get in the village," Harry said, "but I'm going back afterwards."

"I'll escort you as far as the Three Broomsticks, then.  I'm taking the Floo from there."

"Okay."

They walked on amicably. 

"Was there really a St. Ronald?" Harry asked after a minute or two.

"Oh Lord, yes!"  Father Marius chuckled.  "The Scottish Clans are very fond of him – he was a notable chieftain on the Orkney Islands and founded the Cathedral of St. Magnus before he was martyred.  Even the Muggles know about him, although he was definitely a wizard.  Very warlike.  Didn't you see him in the main stained glass windows at the church?  Red hair – like your friend Weasley, actually."

Harry sniggered.  "I'll have to wind him up about it!"

"Hey!  There's nothing to be ashamed of in being named for St. Ronald."

They parted at Madam Rosmerta's door and Harry went on to a small stationery shop.  Copying the book on manual animation had taken up most of his spare parchment and ink; he needed to stock up.  He was just leaving the shop again with a parcel tucked under his arm, when a familiar voice said, "Buy you lunch, stranger?"

Remus Lupin was leaning casually against the wall just a few feet away from the doorway.  He was wearing an unfamiliar midnight blue robe over his more usual jeans and sweater, and a large, bear-like black dog was sitting at his feet.

"Hullo," Harry said after a moment.

"Hullo."  Remus gave him a tentative smile.  "It's okay to tell me to bugger off if you want me to.  We just thought we'd take a chance, seeing as you were going to be in Hogsmeade today anyway."

Caught between two conflicting impulses, Harry was silent.  He'd been preoccupied enough that it hadn't occurred to him that they'd do something like this.  He wanted to shout at the pair of them – especially Sirius.  Embarrassingly, he also wanted to be hugged by them, as they usually insisted on doing.

"I haven't had anything to eat yet," he said finally, very gruffly.

"Rosmerta's doing steak and kidney pudding today," Remus suggested, "and it's pretty quiet at the back of the pub."

"All right then."  But Harry wasn't ready to head for the pub quite yet.  "I'm not talking to you if all you're going to do is sit there and be understanding about everything."

They looked at each other and Padfoot, who had jumped to his feet, retreated behind Remus with his ears down and his tail between his legs.

"I can't promise anything, Harry," Remus said, looking at him steadily.  "But let's just talk and see what happens, eh?  There's nothing to stop you walking away if you want to."

Harry accepted this with a curt nod, feeling horribly ungracious and irrationally defensive all at once, and they crossed the street together, Sirius still in dog form.

"Is he going to stay like that?" Harry wanted to know.

Remus smiled.  "Probably.  Look at it this way – at least he can't say something stupid while he's a dog."

"Hm."

The Three Broomsticks was almost full when they walked through the door, mostly with Hogwarts pupils and the occasional professor. Harry was aware of more than a few sets of eyes on them as they eased their way through the crowd to where Madam Rosmerta was holding court among her customers at the bar.  She came to meet them at Remus's raised hand, though, her eyes running over his robe sharply even as she indicated a nook at the back of the taproom that housed a table and a curving, high-backed bench seat.

"Two lunches?  Ale for you and a butterbeer for the lad?"

"Make that three lunches, Rosmerta, if you please, and a bowl of butterbeer for the dog too, yes?"

She shook her head and tutted but left them to make their way to the table.

"What are you wearing?" Harry asked, frowning, when they were finally in their seats and Padfoot had slunk under the table.

"The robe you mean?"  Remus tugged at the left sleeve self-consciously, straightening out the badge of the Black family crest there, and looked rueful.  "Sirius nagged me into wearing it.  It's called the Spousal Sleeve.  The _paterfamilias_ and his heirs wear the badge on the right lapel and lesser members of the family wear it on the right sleeve, but spouses wear it on the left sleeve near the cuff."

Harry eyed it dubiously.  "Do you count as a spouse, then?"

"That's a matter of opinion."  Remus smiled at him.  "But since legally I constitute an impediment to Sirius marrying anyone else, I suppose I must.  He's making a statement, I'm afraid, in advance of the Wizengamot debating the proposed Dark Creatures Internment Bill."

"That's all right then," Harry said.

"That too is a matter of opinion.  But let's talk about something else for a while.  How did your session with Father Marius go?"

"It was okay.  But I'm not getting Confirmed on Tuesday after all."

"I think that became fairly obvious as time went on.  I wonder what the hitch was?  But never mind – did he suggest a different date?"

"Dumbledore thought All Saints Day was more likely," Harry said, "and Father Marius reckons so too."

"That's two weeks away."  Remus looked thoughtful.  "I would have thought the Bishop would need more notice, but perhaps he's the one who wanted it moved.  Bit of a strange date for it though.  It's a fairly important day in the church calendar, but that's mostly because it falls the day after Hallowe'en."

Harry's stomach lurched a little.  He'd forgotten that – the anniversary of his parents' deaths would fall the night before his Confirmation in that case.

"Father Marius said he'd let me know," he said after a moment.

"He'll have to let us all know, so that we can arrange things," Remus said briskly.  "Thank heavens it's a Saturday – at least the Wizengamot won't be sitting."

One of the bar staff appeared then with their order – a large tray holding two tankards, three plates of steak and kidney pudding, and a bowl full of butterbeer.  Padfoot sat up abruptly, jostling the table and sniffing eagerly.

"You really are the most appalling mutt," Remus told him severely, when the waitress had gone again.  He put the bowl of butterbeer down on the floor but Padfoot ignored it, his nose snuffling around the edge of the tray instead.  Remus began to cut up one portion of the steak and kidney pudding for him.  "You shouldn't eat this in dog form," he said severely.  "You'll end up with indigestion when you change back.  And you can't have it yet, it's far too hot."  Padfoot whined.  "Oh very well, but don't blame me if you burn yourself!"

The pudding was excellent, with rich crispy pastry and thick gravy, but Harry toyed with it.  He wondered if he should have gone back to school for lunch after all.

"Will you talk to me now?" Remus asked him quietly.

Harry shrugged.  "What's to say?"

"Well, there's nothing to be done about it - there never really was, was there?  But I wish you'd talk to me about why it upsets you so much."

"I wish _you'd_ explain why it doesn't seem to upset you," Harry retorted.

Remus drew a deep breath.  "Harry … all I can say is that appearances can be very deceptive.  I don't like the idea and I never did, and I can assure you I was in a vile temper about it when Sirius told me it was done.  But I've had to put up with a lot of disagreeable things over the years, and by comparison this is a minor irritant - very minor.  You probably won't believe me when I say this, but one's reactions to difficult and unchangeable events generally change as you get older, because only a very undisciplined and thoughtless person allows their emotions to guide their actions as an adult.  You have to learn to accept the inevitable with good grace, and get on with your life."

Harry was silent, and after a moment Remus added gently, "That's not a rebuke, by the way.  You're seventeen and controlling your reactions to things is a lot harder when you're young, that's all."

"You seem to get along all right with Miss Pettifer," Harry said, after a while.

"It's natural to want to pin the blame on her, rather than Sirius," Remus replied.  "Or easier, I should say.  But it's not her fault that the situation arose, Harry, and if it wasn't her it would have been some other woman.  Personally, I'm happier that it's her because we know her family and the situation is very straightforward.  There's a lot more security for the child this way, as well."

"She's not just having a baby for Sirius, though, is she?" Harry pointed out, gritting his teeth at having to go over all this again.  It really was like having a sore tooth; something that couldn't be left alone and gave a nasty painful jab every so often to remind him that it was still there.  "She wants to move in with you both."

"Not quite.  She wants the option of being able to use us as a bolt-hole if things become difficult for her in the future.  Which is something I can appreciate, and I rather thought you would too."

"I can manage for myself.  I don't expect other people to look after me!"

Remus's eyes were sad.  "No," he admitted.  "I suppose you don't, under the circumstances."

"Besides, even if she didn't want to do that, there's a still a baby on the way.  It's not exactly something you can put away in a box at the end of the day, is it?"

"No," Remus agreed.  "They're small people and they need a lot of attention.  And they have a habit of growing up and then you have to deal with them, no matter how they turn out."

"Actually, you don't."  Harry shoved his plate away.  "When they get older you can always tell them to fuck off, if you've had enough of them."

"Is that what you think Sirius and I are going to do?" Remus asked him.  "Decide we've had enough and tell you to get out?"

"We're not talking about me."

"Well, we _weren't_ …."  Remus sighed, poking his pudding with his fork.  "But let's assume, for appearance's sake, that we're talking about this heir of Sirius's.  All I can say is that you have a very strange view of Sirius's character, and mine, if you think we'd kick him or her out if they didn't turn out the way we thought they should.  Personally I don't give up on people that easily, and Sirius's own experiences from when he was a boy and young man would almost certainly preclude him doing that to his own child.  Or anyone else's for that matter, but according to you we're not talking about anyone else's child, so feel free to pretend I didn't say that."

Harry began to think that it would be a good idea if he just left.  He couldn't see that this conversation was going anywhere useful.

"I'd better go, I've got stuff to do," he muttered and he looked around for his parcel.

"You pulled that stunt on Sirius too," Remus said.  "I really should call you on it, you know.  Or perhaps you're planning to run away from every difficult conversation in your life?  That's a pity – it tends to make for short relationships with people."

"Look, I don't know what you want from me," Harry snapped, losing patience.  "Yeah, I'm pissed off about this whole bloody thing, but like I told Sirius – there's nothing you can do about that, because it's done and can't be undone, can it?

"Very true, but you could at least tell me _why_ it upsets you as much as it does," Remus returned, glazing at him steadily.

"Why?  What the hell does it matter?"

"Because I can't help you if you won't tell me what the problem is."

"And maybe I don't want you to help me!"  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, with all the attendant bile, Harry wished he could recall them.  He looked across at Remus, sullen and a little fearful, but instead of the look of hurt he'd expected he godfather just looked very tired.

"Tell you what," Remus said, pushing his own plate away.  "I'll tell you what I _think_ the problem really is, and you can tell me how wrong I am."

"I don't – "

"Humour me, Harry, for the love of Merlin!"

"Why?" Harry demanded, frustrated.  "Why does it matter?"

"It matters for a thousand reasons, not least that if you can react this badly to Sirius making an arrangement to have an heir, then God only knows how you'll react when it's your own turn."

"What?"  Harry stared at him blankly.

Remus's brows went up.  "Unless, contrary to all the current evidence, you're planning to manage it the traditional way?"

"What are you talking about?"

"An heir, Harry.  Or have you forgotten that you're the last of your line?"

"I'm not having kids," Harry said, after a moment.  The statement had caught him by surprise but his answer was genuine and he didn't even have to think about it.  Having children had never even crossed his mind; it wasn't something he had ever wanted or imagined himself doing.

"That's a shame," Remus said quietly, and Harry was surprised to see that he looked distressed.  "It would be – well, something of a tragedy, actually, considering how hard your recent ancestors fought to continue the Potter family name."

"So?"  After a pause, Harry added, "It's just a name, Remus, and I get shit thrown at me because of it.  What's so great about that?"

Remus looked at a loss for something to say for a moment.  "There's a lot of history attached to that name, Harry.  You shouldn't judge something so important to you by the bigotry of other people."

"But that's my point.  It's _not_ important to me.  I keep telling people this and they don't seem to get it – it's not _my_ life, not _my_ history.  Don't get me wrong – it's useful to be able to pretend I'm this Henry Potter bloke, sometimes it's even fun, but it's just pretending.  You can stick me in the clothes and tell me the right words to say, but it's still an act."

"Harry – "

"Remus, you had to tell me what this meant."  Harry leaned across the table and tugged at the badge on his sleeve.  "Don't you get it?  It's a million things like that – things that everyone else grew up knowing and I didn't.  And they're important to everyone else, but I can't take them seriously because to me they're just not _relevant_.  So it's no good asking me to care about whether there's going to be another Potter after me, because I don't."

There was a sudden staticky rush of air and Sirius was sitting next to him.

"I used to think like that," he said quietly.  "Sodding Blacks, let 'em all die out – that kind of thing.  Only your perspective does change over time."

"You're not listening to me," Harry said irritably.  "It's different for you, you were brought up with all this First Family crap.  I wasn't.  Besides, it's not like you really wanted to do this, is it?  You need to inherit everything and this is the only way you can do that."

There was a pause during which the two men looked at each other with decidedly odd expressions.  Looking from one to the other, Harry felt a sinking sensation in his gut.

"Or that could just have been a lie," he said, managing a tolerably dry and flippant tone.  "Funny, I didn't think you were the broody type."

"Personally, I think of it as a positive thing," Sirius said, a little edgily.  "After all, how would _you_ like to grow up to discover that you were just a means to an end?"

"It'd be the truth," Harry retorted, "and at least he'd know he wasn't alone in it, seeing as how most heirs to the First Families are in the same position!"

"Harry, that's a terrible thing to say!"  Remus looked appalled.

Harry shrugged.  "I don't see why.  It's all pretty dynastic as far as I can see.  But I don't get families and never did."

"You don't really think your parents had you just for dynastic and financial reasons, do you?"

"No idea," Harry told him coolly, "but it's starting to look that way."

Sirius grimaced at this.  "I think we should stop here, while I can still pretend you didn't say that."

"I wanted to stop ten minutes ago," Harry retorted.  "There's nothing else I want to say and I've got stuff to do back at school.  Besides, there must be people from the Order hanging around who are getting really pissed off because I didn't go straight back to school in the first place."

"Harry, if you keep walking away from me we'll never resolve anything."

Harry stifled a sigh.  "What do you want me to say, Sirius?  That I don't hate you?  Fine.  I don't hate you."

"I wish I believed that, but your mouth is saying one thing and your actions are saying another," Sirius pointed out.

"Then I can't help you, can I?" Harry snapped, exasperated.  "Can I go now?"

"Fine.  Go.  I can't stop you."  Sirius sounded utterly defeated.

In the midst of his annoyance Harry felt a twinge of guilt.  But what more did they want from him?  Not knowing the answer to that, and definitely not wanting to ask, he picked up his parcel and got up.

"I'll probably see you in a couple of weeks time," he said, and fled before he could change his mind.

 

xXx

 

When Harry was gone, Sirius looked across at Remus with frustrated eyes.

"Kill me if I ever suggest doing something like this again," he said.  "A complete waste of time."

Remus rubbed his eyes.  "I don't know about that.  You'll notice that he managed to avoid talking about what was really bothering him – again," he noted wryly.

"I don't think he was even trying that time."  Sirius sighed.  "Well, what now?"

"Now we go home.  There aren't a lot of alternatives to that, I'm afraid."

"And wait till his Confirmation when, buoyed up by religious fervour, he'll be in a more receptive frame of mind?"

Remus laughed in spite of himself at this unlikely picture of Harry.

"That'll be the day!  No … no, I think this time we stop backing away from the confrontation when he dictates.  Let's give Loki some exercise instead."

"You want to write him a letter?"  Sirius gave him a sceptical look.  "Moony, what's to stop him just tearing it up?"

"Nothing," Remus acknowledged.  "But he's Harry and he's as nosy as a kneazle.  If I know him, he'll just _have_ to read it, even if he does burn it afterwards.  And maybe some of what he reads will stick – eventually."

 

xXx

 

 **27 th October – 1st November 1997**

 

 _Dear Harry –_

 _You have a remarkable knack for diverting people away from topics you don't want to discuss._

 _How's that for an opening line?  Of course, the advantage of this method of communication is that I can talk all I want without interruption.  The downside is that you're probably screwing it up and throwing it away even now.  But that's a risk I'm going to take._

 _Somehow we never did manage to resolve the question of what it is that bothers you so much about Sirius and the baby, because you got lucky and the conversation went off in a different direction before I could drag all your secrets out.  So let's rewind a little.  What was it I said?  That I'd tell you what I thought the sticking point was, so that you could deny it?  Close enough._

 _Here's what I think: that there are two similar-but-not-entirely-unrelated issues and unfortunately they've collided, really pressing all your buttons.  Shall we start with the obscure one?  The one that makes you stiffen up at odd moments, makes you snarl at Nymphadora Tonks, and probably made a mess of things with your girlfriend Cho Chang –_

 

Harry screwed up the letter furiously and stuffed it into the bottom of his bag.

"Trouble?" Blaise asked, watching this with surprise.

Harry was angry enough to be unheeding of his audience.  "If people had families like mine, they wouldn't go on about them being so special," he said, pushing his half-eaten breakfast away.

"You don't have any family," Theodore Nott remarked rather unwisely.  "You're an orphan."

Harry shot him a look that should have fried him to a cinder where he sat.  Malfoy, who was watching Harry with a look of puzzled enjoyment, asked, "Are we referring to the deplorable Muggles or someone else, Potter?"

Harry stared at him for a moment.  "Not especially," he said finally, "but they're a pretty good example too, now I come to think of it."

"Ah well!  _Muggles_ ," Malfoy replied with spurious sympathy.  "What do you expect?"

"Not a lot more than I expect from pureblood wizards, actually."

"How to make friends and influence people," Blaise remarked, dry enough to parch a small ocean.

Harry gave him a startled look.  "Present company excepted.  Well, mostly," he added, looking rather pointedly at Malfoy.

"There's a word for what you suffer from, Potter," Blaise said, as they headed for the Transfiguration classroom. 

"What's that then?"

"Misanthropy." 

"I don't have a dictionary on me at the moment," Harry said.  "Definition?"

"A loathing of humanity," Blaise replied.  "Does that sound about right to you?"

"I don't hate _everybody_ ," Harry told him.  "Just most people."

Blaise stared at him and a tiny smile dawned.  "Close enough!

Transfiguration was mostly bookwork that morning, which left Harry with time enough to start wondering about Remus's letter. Under the cover of rustling parchment, scratching quills and the flipping of pages in textbooks he slipped the abused letter out of his bag and smoothed out the creases.




 _Sirius tells me that the MLE kept a surprisingly close watch over your Aunt and Uncle's house while you lived with them, and made a particular point of compiling a dossier on the pair of them so that they knew exactly who they were dealing with should anything untoward ever happen to you (or them for that matter).  Unsurprisingly, there's not a lot about your Aunt that they considered interesting, as she was a housewife with regular habits, but your Uncle was flagged up as a potential cause for concern quite early on.  Men with secrets, Harry, are men with vulnerabilities that can be exploited and Vernon Dursley was a man with a number of secrets, starting with one or two financial irregularities at the manufacturing company he worked for – nothing very major, admittedly, but almost certainly linked to a more serious secret gambling habit – and progressing up to a number of lady friends I'm pretty sure your Aunt wouldn't have been too amused about had she found out about them._

 _In fact, I'm inclined to think that at some point she_ did _find out about at least one of his little peccadilloes, and since I knew Petunia Evans a little even before your parents got married, I'd hazard a guess that she wasn't the kind to bottle up her opinions and feelings on the subject._

 _And this is why I think your problems are related, Harry – because for obvious and understandable reasons, you're a very insecure person.  You must have felt insecure in that household from an early age, because Petunia quite happily informed Sirius that she'd considered giving you to an orphanage on a number of occasions, an opinion which appears to have been seconded at intervals by her husband and in-laws.  I'm sure she didn't hide that from you.  So to overhear your Aunt telling her husband to shape up or she'd leave him must have been very frightening for you, because it would put a question-mark over the only home you'd ever known.  A divorced woman with a son of her own to raise isn't likely to have spare capacity to care for her unwanted nephew as well, and until you signed all those papers on your birthday you didn't know that she'd been paid to take care of you all along, did you?_

 _So it's not much of a stretch after all that to conclude that you'd be very twitchy about anything that threatened your security in that way in the future.  And if the rows between your Aunt and Uncle were particularly unpleasant (I'm sure they were) then maybe, just maybe, you'd develop a problem with infidelity generally.  Which would explain why your fascination with Nymphadora took a U-turn so quickly and why you were so unhappy with the details of Sirius's contract with Primrose Pettifer.  Sirius provides the roof over your head and the two of them posed a potential threat to that._

 

"That's not it at all," Harry mumbled.  Blaise dug an elbow into his side, which recalled him to his surroundings just in time; he slid the letter underneath his textbook and ignored it for the rest of the lesson.

After lunch (during which he continued to ignore the piece of paper resolutely) came Herbology, which meant that Harry was able to keep ignoring Remus's letter in favour of soothing physical activity - keeping his fingers out of the way of the snapping seedlings in his tray and pruning his Balm Bush.  Then it was a free lesson and Harry had a session with Professor Flitwick again.

Surprisingly (and it certainly surprised Harry), in spite of everything he'd still managed to prepare for this lesson.

"Have you given more thought as to how you might make a more fluid snake model, Mr. Potter?" Flitwick asked.

"Yes, sir.  It needs to be a solid material that can become liquid when it's Animated, doesn't it?"  Harry had remembered the study door handle at Black Manor.  "Maybe metal, although that might be a bit heavy."

Flitwick was nodding.  "Yes, yes - but the principle is sound!  Go on!"

"Resin might be good," Harry continued, "or possibly blown glass, which would be hollow but still in one piece."

"And why would those substances work?"

"Because they're not liquid or crystalline - they're amorphous?"

"Excellent!"  Professor Flitwick beamed at him.  "A genuinely crystalline material might shatter under the pressure of Animation, and in any case one would have to Animate the entire crystalline structure to ensure successful separation of consciousness.  Glass and resins are fluid at the core of their nature, especially under the pressure of magic, and react very positively to Animation.  For the purposes of model making, however, one generally prefers to use resin, as a glass model still retains its fragile properties when not in motion.  But for practice glass is excellent - one knows almost immediately if a mistake has been made as the model shatters.

"Now - today's task.  I have here a small wooden snake I constructed over the weekend and we are going to test your Transfigurative abilities, Mr. Potter.  Constructing a blown glass snake in the traditional manner would require skills which I doubt either of us possesses, so your first task will be to Transfigure this snake into a hollow glass structure  ...."

Harry went to dinner with his mind entirely on blown glass snakes and it wasn't until he was settled in a corner of the library afterwards that he remembered Remus's letter and reluctantly pulled it out.

 

 _But I think it goes a little deeper than that, Harry_ (Remus continued). _We all start out by idolising our parents, but you didn't know your parents well enough to develop that feeling.  And yet I know from the conversations we had when I was teaching you the Patronus Charm that you very badly wanted to idolise your father in particular.  That's perfectly natural for a boy; his father is his primary male role-model.  And you did idolise him, didn't you - right up until you saw Severus Snape's memory and were exposed to a side of James that no one had prepared you for.  It didn't matter then that it was one isolated incident, presented to you with no context or background information, by a man you know hated your father; it shattered the image you'd built up from anecdotes given to you by people who remembered James with the rosy hindsight of memory._

 _And I suppose it didn't help that it added to your mixed feelings about Sirius either.  After all, let's be honest - Sirius is the next best thing you have to a father now.  You may prefer not to think of it that way, but you must surely realise that your relationship with him couldn't possibly be this complicated and difficult if you didn't have feelings and expectations of him above and beyond the normal relationship between a man and his godfather._

 

"Do you mind?" a familiar voice whispered cheerfully, and a lanky body dropped into the chair next to him.  "Everywhere else is full up."

Harry put the letter down again with relief, grinning at the memory.  "You take up more room now than you did then."

Ron's freckled face lit up in a grin.  "So do you - just about," he needled.  "Are you ever going to eat a normal meal again?  I dunno how you survive on what you eat, I'd have passed out cold from hunger a long time ago."

Harry shrugged, surprised to find that he didn't mind Ron pushing the issue.  "I do okay.  I don't have much appetite sometimes, that's all."

"You'll stunt your growth and strangle your brain juices, you will."  Ron didn't push the matter though.  "You all right, mate?  Sorry I didn't see you yesterday, but you probably heard about the complete arse-up our team likes to call Quidditch practice."

Harry sniggered, all previous aggravation forgotten.  "How many of them ended up in the infirmary?"

"Just the one!"

"Funny - I don't think we've had a collision like that since I took Crabbe and Goyle off the team."

"Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in!"  Ron grinned ruefully.  "What a bunch of complete pillocks, eh?  But it's always silly season in practice - they'll be okay when we actually play a match."

"You hope!" Harry taunted, amused.  "So long as they all remember their omnioculars and don't get their brooms tangled up more than once - "

"Shurrup, you arse!"  Ron gave him a friendly shove.  "Just 'cause you have a bunch of wizkids behind you who all think you're the best thing that ever had a broom between his legs - "

"Just so long as they never find out _whose_ broom it is," Harry said, grinning, and they both sniggered happily at the innuendo.

"So how's life, then?" Ron said, remembering at the last minute to keep his voice down.  He began to pull his textbooks and parchment out of his bag and put them on the table.

"So-so."

"Yeah?  What did Father Marius say?  When are you getting Confirmed?"

Harry shrugged.  "Not sure yet.  It was supposed to be tomorrow, but that went pear-shaped for some reason, so now he's got to talk to the Bishop.  He's hoping it'll be All Saints Day though - November 1st, right?"

"Oh."  Ron thought about this and suddenly his face brightened.  "Hey, that's a Saturday!  Maybe I can get permission to come."

Harry smiled.  "Maybe.  Will McGonagall accept it as a good reason to miss the first Magical Ethics class, though?"

"Bugger, I forgot about that.  What do you reckon about it?"

"I reckon Dumbledore's had enough of me and Malfoy," Harry observed.  "Someone in my Herbology class tried to get inside my head the other day - someone who wasn't too far away and didn't know too much about what they were doing."

Ron's eyes were huge.  "Malfoy?  You stopped him, though, right?"

"Didn't even have to think about it," Harry said, and he allowed himself to feel just a tiny bit smug about this for once.  "But I told Dumbledore and he was all _Don't worry about it, you blocked it_ etcetera etcetera."

"I s'pose there's no way to prove it was Malfoy?" Ron asked.

Harry shrugged.  "Not unless someone goes inside _his_ head to find out what he was up to, and I don't suppose they can do that without a really good reason.  It threw me a bit, though, I don't mind telling you.  What do you want to bet me that this is why he didn't manage to learn Russian in time to go to Durmstrang?"

"How difficult is it to get inside someone's head?"

"Well, I haven't managed to get inside Dumbledore's head yet, and that's with both of us completely unshielded and him _letting_ me inside," Harry said with a sigh.  "It's worse than Occlumency - there's even less information in books on how to do it, even the whole books written about Legilimancy, and all Dumbledore can tell me is that I have to think myself into his head."

"Maybe that's where your problem is," Ron suggested.  "It's _Dumbledore_.  I mean, he's barmy, isn't he?  He doesn't think like other people."

Harry looked at him, startled.  While he didn't think Dumbledore was necessarily _barmy_ , what Ron said could be quite true.  How was anyone supposed to think their way into the head of someone who seemed to have such a different sort of mind?  Because Dumbledore certainly wasn't like other people.

"Has anyone told you you're a genius?" Harry told Ron, impressed.

Ron's ears turned slightly pink.  "Not lately."

"Well, you are.  Remind me to snog you when we get a chance."

"You reckon you should be trying someone else instead of Dumbledore, then?"

"Yeah."  Then Harry deflated a little.  "The only question is who.  He made me promise not to use it against people at the beginning of term."

Ron thought about this.  "Well ... using it _against_ someone is different, isn't it?  What if it was someone who let you do it?  Someone who volunteered?"

Harry looked at him and knew what he was going to say.  "Not you!"

Ron looked hurt.  "Why not?  I don't have anything to hide from you!"  Then he turned a little red and for a moment looked uncertain.

"Everyone has something to hide," Harry told him.  Besides, he couldn't put it into words, but he didn't want to go inside Ron's head because he felt there might be things he wasn't sure he wanted to know too much about.  Not _bad_ things necessarily but ... emotional things perhaps.  Things about himself and Ron that he wasn't ready to know too much about, or not from Ron's perspective at any rate.  And there was something else to consider, a much more potent reason.  "Besides, you don't know how to do Occlumency."

"That's the point isn't it?"

"Everyone has _some_ mental defences," Harry explained.  "I don't really know what I'm doing with Legilimancy yet - I could do something, maybe damage any natural mental shields you've got, and then you'd be vulnerable to people like Malfoy.  Or worse."

"Better me than you," Ron pointed out.

"I'm already ahead on that one."  Harry sighed and rubbed his face.  "No, it'll have to be someone else." 

He wondered who, though.  Something told him that his fellow Slytherins, even relatively decent sorts like Blaise, would all be even more guarded than Ron, whether they knew Occlumency or no.  Unless, of course, it was someone like Pansy or Daphne, but the idea of trying to get inside their minds was rather gross.

"Hermione?" Ron suggested.  "She'd probably do it if we asked."

Harry thought about the Head Girl.  He wasn't sure he could think himself into her head either - she was so organised that she was bound to be fairly well shielded.  In fact, he wouldn't put it past her to have been practicing Occlumency on her own ever since she'd learned about his lessons.  On the other hand, he didn't have many other choices.

"Where is she?" he asked Ron.

Ron rolled his eyes.  "With Goldstein, doing Head Girl stuff.  Again."

Harry was momentarily diverted.  "Really?  You sure they're not - you know?"

Ron grimaced.  "Urgh!  Besides, I thought he had the hots for you?"

"He doesn't have the hots for me!" Harry protested, but the retort was automatic rather than a genuine grumble.  "Besides, maybe it's possible to have the hots for two people at once."

Ron looked disturbed.  "Yeah, but she's a girl and you're a bloke!"

Harry was suddenly reminded of Amy Snodgrass.  "I reckon it's probably possible to like both, yeah?  I mean, I've had girlfriends and so have you."

"I s'pose so."  Ron made a face.  "But Goldstein ...!"

"Same kind of brain," Harry pointed out.  "Girls like that sort of thing, don't they?"

"Hm."  Ron didn't seem too keen on this idea.  Then his brows went up.  "You could try to get into Goldstein's head the next time you have a class with him."

Harry wrinkled his nose.  "Do I really want to know what he's thinking though?"

"No, but I do, if he's putting his sticky mitts on Hermione!"

Harry stared at him and stifled a wild urge to laugh.  "Why do you care?"

"Because he's obviously a lech, if he's after both of you at once!"

Since Harry had had a couple of ambivalent moments himself over Amy, he didn't feel he was really in any position to agree with this statement.  On the other hand, he wasn't about to argue against it either, since that might involve explanations that he knew for sure Ron wouldn't appreciate.  Harry liked the idea of his friend being jealous, but only while it was an abstract thing; he wasn't about to offer both proof and ammunition.  Especially as he hadn't actually _done_ anything ... other than perv a little without thinking.

Fortunately, he was rescued before he had to say anything.  The library was starting to fill up and more and more gangs of people were looking for places to study and peering briefly into the bay between bookshelves where Ron and Harry were talking at their table.  Looking a bit disappointed, Ron began to gather his books and papers together. 

"I reckon I'd better move off, yeah?  I thought I heard Nott a minute ago - got a voice like a bloody foghorn, that one - and it's probably better if we're not seen."

"Yeah," Harry said, relieved but disappointed.  "Talk to you later maybe, yeah?"

"Okay.  I'll send Rosebud if I get a chance."

Ron shouldered his bag, gave Harry a rueful smile and went to find somewhere less conspicuous to study.  Harry reluctantly turned back to his books - and Remus's letter.

 

 _No one really likes to think of their father - or mother - as being fallible, Harry.  We like to imagine that our parents are a solid unit and not the kind of people who would cheat on each other, tell lies and deceive their families.  And even when the situation doesn't actually involve deception or cheating, it's uncomfortable and difficult to deal with.  It must be doubly difficult for you to understand and accept these things, when your childhood was so unhappy and disrupted and you were raised by people whose stated values were so patently at odds with their actions.  When you finally rediscovered your real parents, you must have grabbed onto the image you were given of them like a rock in a storm.  It was unforgivable of Severus to deliberately set out to destroy that for you, especially when it so damaged your relationship with Sirius at the same time._

 _But people do thoughtless things, without stopping to consider or care what the consequences may be.  That, unfortunately, is life.  Just as Sirius so thoughtlessly made an issue of you being a Slytherin when you first met.  All the consolation I can offer where either of these men is concerned is that there was never any malice in what Sirius said, only shock, and that if there was malice in what Severus did it was never really aimed at you.  And if your father was the bully you have accused him of being, then I - I, who knew him as well as any man - can only ask you to remember that he was just a boy and that boys grow up and change._

 _Just as you have changed and are changing still._

 _And I suspect that this is as much philosophy as you can stomach in one letter, if indeed you've borne with me this far.  I'll write again, Harry - not a threat, just a promise from godfather to godson - in the hopes that perhaps you'll think about what I'm saying to you.  And I'm always here for you, if you want to write back._

 _Take care._

 _Your loving godfather,_

 _Remus_

 

Harry folded the letter up, chewing on his lip, and tucked it inside his diary behind Fawkes's feather.  He'd read it again later, perhaps.  Perhaps.

He turned back to his books and for ten or fifteen minutes was fully occupied with his Divination homework.  Then another large group of people bustled into the library with all the irritating noise of people who are trying too hard to be quiet, and Harry mumbled an irritable word or two under his breath.  He could hear them settling in the next bay between the huge shelves of books, several female voices, including one very familiar one instructing them in a voice of prefectly authority to hurry up and settle down.

Amy Snodgrass.  Well, wasn't that a coincidence?  He wondered if she was just chastising a group of newcomers or whether she was sitting with them herself.

Not that it was any of his business.

Not that he cared what she did or where she was at any given time.  It _was_ a coincidence, though.

Harry liked to think of himself as someone with a lot of self-control, but on occasion even he was moved by insane impulses that he couldn't prevent.  He was on his feet and picking up a large abandoned book from the end of his table before he fully knew what he was doing, and his feet inexorably took him out of his own bay into the central aisle of the library, past the next bay and onwards to a long wooden trolley that was used to stack discarded books on for their return to the shelves later.  (This was a job often handed out as a lesser detention to the lower years.)  Harry deposited the book there and turned back.

She was there, sitting with her friends and surrounded by books, quills and parchment.  Harry glanced oh-so-casually that way as he returned to his own bay and as he did so Amy looked up and straight at him.  Absurdly he felt himself turn red; even more absurdly, he saw her colour up too.  He was grateful when his feet, which seemed to be the only parts of him that hadn't entirely turned traitor to his intentions, carried him past without stopping and led him back to his own solitary table again.  Once there, he collapsed into his seat.

Ridiculous.  It wasn't as if he even fancied her anymore.  And there was Ron, whom he most definitely _did_ fancy.

And yet ....

It was then that Harry was overcome by a terrible temptation.  He was looking for someone to try Legilimancy on; why not Amy?  She was there and he knew her moderately well, and he didn't think she was the kind of person who would have rigid mental defences of any kind.  And it would be interesting know just what she had been thinking when their eyes met moments ago.

He slid down in his seat slightly, picked up his quill and bent over his parchment.  If anyone looked into his bay now, they'd only see him working hard with his books and essay and not think anything of it.

Harry closed his eyes.  _Think yourself into my mind_ , Dumbledore had told him.  He could see Amy's face now, not as it had been a couple of minutes ago but nearly a year previously, before she had told him it was all at an end.  Touching her hair, her face, her lips, looking into her eyes, smelling her light spiced perfume and thinking ....

Another pair of eyes intruded into the memory, another pair of lips, a different shade of hair.  Someone taller, more solid, with a different voice, a different smell.  Harry's heart began to race and he opened his eyes a split second before he could take the decision to drop his mental shields.

No.  He couldn't do it.  Not when she knew nothing about it and hadn't been offered a  choice.  It wasn't right, just to satisfy his curiosity and some lingering sense of longing held over from a relationship he hadn't had proper closure for.  And it wasn't fair - not to Amy and certainly not to Ron.  They were both important to him in their own different ways, and he owed them better treatment than satisfying his own selfish whims by going behind the back of one to seek God only knew what from the mind of the other.

Harry hastily began to gather up his books and homework.  He was better off studying somewhere else, where he wouldn't have temptation thrust under his nose.

 

xXx

 

The next owl arrived on Wednesday.  It was from Sirius.

 

 _Dear Harry,_

 _When I was young it never occurred to me that I would one day be a parent.  It went without saying in my family that one day, as the heir, I would marry and continue the family name.  It was only later, some time after I'd met Remus, that it began to dawn on me that I couldn't do what was expected of me and, more than that, that I didn't want to._

 _I made a conscious choice then - a very selfish choice - to follow my own path and make my own way through life.  I told them where they could stick their family name and expectations, and I thought myself clever for doing it.  What I didn't care about then, and can't tell now, is how much damage that decision did to us all in the long run.  How much pressure did it put on my brother and how did it affect the decisions he later made?  How much difference would it have made to the Order if I'd still been the high and mighty heir of the House of Black, and potentially a more interesting candidate to the Death Eaters than Regulus or Severus?  Your grandfather tried to reason with me back then, telling me that there was so much more good I could do on the inside of the First Families than by thumbing my nose at them from the sidelines.  I didn't listen to him, of course, and how right did he prove in the end?_

 _But I never wanted children, or not my own at any rate.  That was Prongs's role, he was going to be the father and we would all be the godparents, and between the five of us - him, Lily, me, Moony and Wormtail - we'd raise the Potter kids (because there was always going to be more than one of you) to be the next generation of Marauders._

 _And yet when you were born I was conscious of something that was missing inside myself.  I did love you even then, Harry; we all did.  You were very easy to love.  Your needs were simple ones and you had no expectations of any of us beyond the things all babies have a right to - feeding, care, a pair of warm arms, a soothing voice.  There were so many things that everyone else seemed to want from me, and so many of them things that I was unwilling or unable to give, but not you.  You were perfectly happy to be picked up and held and talked to, and you didn't much care what I said so long as it was in the right tone of voice._

 _And you know, I've wondered since why I never noticed that Peter had stopped picking you up and holding you.  I can guess why now, of course; it would have been very much harder to betray you all to Voldemort, especially you, had he not distanced himself from you a little.  I still wonder how he managed to sit down to dinner with your parents just days before they died, though, and how he could even have looked at you in your cradle - as he must have done - knowing that he was condemning you to die._

 _I couldn't do something like that, Harry, but that doesn't mean I'm unaware of the damage I've done unintentionally over the years.  The list is a long one, starting with my part in the deaths of your parents and stretching out across things like my brother, Peter Pettigrew and Snape becoming Death Eaters, and your mistrust of me.  You've accused your father and me of being bullies in our time.  I was furious the first time you said that, but some of the fury was directly caused by guilt, because somewhere along the line I knew it was true.  That doesn't make Snape any the less guilty of his part in things - and make no mistake, Harry, he was as much the sinner as the sinned against - but if I acknowledge that, then I have to ask questions about what our behaviour may have led to.  Everyone makes choices in their lives, and usually the choice to do evil is a deliberate one.  But choices can be influenced by a lot of things._

 _Snape is a strong-willed man, and if I'm honest with myself I can admit that he was always strong-willed.  He had to be; his father was a hateful man, much worse than my own because he had little if any veneer of civilisation and cared nothing for what people thought of him.  My Aunt Octavia was married to him by arrangement and they fought throughout their lives together, bitterly and viciously.  They hated each other and Snape was a pawn to be used in their war.  That's not offering excuses for him, Harry, but it does offer an explanation for his character.  I don't believe that much James and I did to Severus made a great deal of difference in his decisions when he was older, but I don't suppose it helped either._

 _Peter, though ....  Peter was always weak, always easily led and consequently always a follower.  He clung to us because we protected him from the likes of the Slytherins; we bullied him too, but we liked to think it was affectionate and we allowed no one else to touch him.  That's children's logic, Harry, as you must surely realise.  It's only as an adult that I can see that bullying is still bullying to the victim, whatever the bully's rationale for it.  What we offered him was the choice between two evils, and we always had the upper hand because we shared his dormitory.  What I couldn't see then - what I only began to see relatively recently - was that we didn't really include him in the things we did, not in the way we included Remus.  Peter was always destined to be a satellite around the rest of us, a supplicant, and he must have recognised that even if we didn't.  And it goes further than that, because as we grew older there were other relationships he couldn't hope to compete with, let alone be a part of.  Me and Remus, James and Lily ....  Peter adored James in particular.  Looking back I can see that it was a kind of crush; I'm not saying that it was necessarily sexual in nature, but that kind of hero-worship happens as much to boys as to girls.  Peter just never really grew out of it, and James was utterly oblivious to it._

 _When he was finally caught when you were thirteen, I accused him of always sucking up to the strongest side.  Do you remember that?  I've been thinking about the latter end of the first war a lot lately and with hindsight I can see things clearly that I didn't realise back then.  It was true that he followed the strongest man - but that wasn't the whole truth.  If he became a Death Eater because he perceived Voldemort as being the better bet, it was a least partly because he'd slowly become invisible to us.  Once we left school we all became more absorbed in our own affairs, and Peter - who'd always been on the fringe of our notice - simply slipped away from us.  And as the war progressed and got worse, we were all so caught up in our own roles in it that we never noticed that he was less and less available._

 _That's how important a friend he was to us, Harry.  What does that say about me - about any of us?  He walked away into the arms of the Death Eaters and not one of us noticed until it was too late, and while I can argue till I'm blue in the face that he still made a deliberate choice to betray us, there's no denying that we set up a lot of the conditions that helped him to make that decision.  We knew he was weak, but we didn't care enough about him to make sure that his weaknesses couldn't be used against him._

 _So that's Severus and Peter.  That just leaves my brother Regulus, doesn't it?  We were friends when we were kids, you know.  He was three years younger than me and he used to tag along behind me and look to me to protect him from Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa.  We told lies to protect each other from our tutor and our parents.  But then I went to Hogwarts and got myself Sorted into Gryffindor, and everything changed.  When I went home for the first summer holiday something was different, but it took until Reg started school too for me to realise what it was.  He was Sorted into Slytherin and from that day forward we weren't on the same side._

 _He was a lot like Peter, Harry.  More of a follower than a leader, always desperate for the approval of the right people.  He was putty in my parents' hands for just that reason and looking back, I can imagine what it must have been like for him when I walked out and he was left as the sole heir.  Would he have joined the Death Eaters if I'd swallowed my pride and anger - as your grandfather asked me to do - and gone back?  I don't know.  All I know is that cared more about my own life than I cared about his.  I held him in contempt for the same reasons I held Peter in contempt, but looking back I should perhaps have pitied him more._

 _I pitied him later, in Azkaban, but that's a story I haven't been able to tell anyone, not even Remus.  Perhaps one day I'll be able to tell you.  One day, when we can manage to talk about the things that matter to us without tearing into each other.  Do you think that's possible?  I want to believe it's possible, Harry._

 _I know that you must hate me right now and I don't particularly blame you.  I've let you down again, just as I've let down so many other people.  The worst of it is that I walked into this situation knowing that it would happen, but without a clue how to handle it to make things easier for you._

 _We talked once before about what a lousy parent I make - and Harry, I do understand that however much we might like to fudge the issue and not meet it head-on, I am for all intents and purposes your father.  I would be the most wretched liar alive if I pretended that I don't understand why you find the idea of me producing a child of my own so upsetting.  It's not about petty issues of heirs and blood.  It's about your place in my life - and Remus's life for that matter - and how a son of mine will change that.  And I don't know what I can say to you on that front that will reassure you, except to tell you that I don't believe it will change anything and that I'll be doing my damnedest to make sure that it won't.  You are just as much my son as he will be, and you were here first._

 _I don't know what more I can do or say to you to make you believe that.  Perhaps all I can do is wait on events and prove it to you.  But I hate this stiffness and silence between us, Harry, and I hate knowing that you feel another person in your life has betrayed you somehow.  Please don't feel that you have to make your way through life on your own because of this.  You're not alone; I'm still right here for you._

 _Love,_

 _Sirius_

 

Harry frowned at this; it made him feel resentful and oddly anxious.

 _I'm not alone.  I have Ron._

Thank God for Ron, the one sane and reliable person in a world full of nutters and people he couldn't trust.  Ron - the one person Harry selfishly couldn't bring himself to push away, in spite of knowing it made his friend a big, tempting target for Voldemort and his henchmen.

 _Damn it._

Harry folded Sirius's letter up and tucked it inside his diary with Remus's, then resolutely put the book away in his bag.  He pulled his parchment towards him and picked up a quill, but he had no idea what he was supposed to be writing.

"More letters from your family?"  Blaise was watching him again over the top of the pile of books between them on the Common Room table that they shared with Tracy Davis and Millicent Bulstrode.  "What are they being so chatty about all of a sudden?"

Harry shook his head tiredly.  "Nothing.  But believe me, life was simpler when it was just Voldemort I had to worry about."

A frisson of dismay went through the others at the name, and Harry rolled his eyes impatiently.

"Oh, come on!  It's just a nickname he chose for himself, and a pretty cheesy one at that.  It's a forced anagram of his real name, for crying out loud!"

Tracy stared at him in disbelief.  "You're joking."

Harry snorted.  "I wish!  He told me that himself."

"So what's his real name?" Blaise asked, frowning.  Harry was amused to hear him keeping his voice low, although perhaps that was just as well.  The common room wasn't full, but there were quite a few people hanging around.

"Here, I'll show you."  Harry pushed the books aside and put his sheet of parchment in the middle of the table where they could all see it.  "His real name is Tom Riddle - Tom Marvolo Riddle actually.  So if you rearrange the letters ...."  He scratched out the full name with his quill, then underneath picked out the letters, moving them around.

 _I-A-M-L-O-R-D-V-O-L-D-E-M-O-R-T_

"Iamlor ..."  Tracy stopped, spelled it out under her breath, then repeated it more loudly, incredulous.  " _I am Lord Voldemort?_   Potter, are you winding us up?"

"Nope."  Harry was grimly amused at their expressions.  "He told me when I saw him in the Chamber of Secrets at the end of our Second Year."

"Sounds like a bad joke to me," Millicent said shortly.

"Yeah, I'd have thought the same if I hadn't seen his father's headstone.  Tom Riddle was his father's name, and Dumbledore told me that Marvolo was his grandfather's name."

"Riddle sounds like a wizard name, but it's not one I recognise," Blaise said.

"It's not.  His father was a Muggle."

If they'd looked surprised before, now they all looked positively shocked - even fearful.  Tracy took a quick look over her shoulder before hissing, "The Dark Lord is a _Mudblood?_ "

"I don't like that word," Harry told her coolly, "and he's a halfblood.  His mother was a witch from some pureblood family called Gaunt."

"The Gaunts died out decades ago - the last _paterfamilias_ went to Azkaban for murdering a Muggle family!" Blaise said, beginning to look agitated.

"Yeah - he was set up for the murder of the Riddles," Harry replied.  "Voldemort did it and made it look like his wizard uncle was the murderer."

"That can't be true."

Harry shrugged.  "Believe what you like.  But he's definitely a halfblood, he's said as much to me."

"Why would the Dark Lord tell you something like that?" Tracy demanded.  "He believes in the superiority of wizard blood, that … that halfbloods and Muggleborns are inferior and shouldn't be a part of our society!"

"He's a maniac!" Harry retorted.  "Why the hell should anything he thinks or does make sense?  And he tells me because he wants to insult my mother and likes to drive me nuts by pointing out how much we have in common!"

 


	6. Chapter 6

Harry began to wonder if he would have any time to himself anymore.  He seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time studying, not just for his NEWT subjects but also in classes with Flitwick and Dumbledore.  And when he wasn't in extracurricular classes with them and he wasn't doing homework, he was reading other books - Gaius Black's notebooks and the book on golems and manual animation - and trying, fruitlessly, to follow up the ideas these gave him via the school libraries.  He began to dream of books full of knowledge that he could only search for hopelessly in archives that seemed to go on forever and had shelves that were perpetually out of reach.  And when he wasn't dreaming about books and golems and automata that came alive, he dreamed about Sirius and Remus and endless quarrels with them that seemed to have no reason or resolution.

Until one night he dreamed of a particularly vicious fight with Sirius where, enraged, he lifted his wand to curse his godfather ... and Fawkes's feather dropped down from the sky to land between them at their feet.  Harry stooped to pick it up, the curse forgotten and his anger draining away, leaving him bewildered and frightened. 

When he awoke the feather was in his hand and he had no idea of how it had got there.

It was Saturday morning.  He could have chosen to lie in for a while, as he had no extra lessons until later and Quidditch practice wasn't until eleven.  But Harry was a creature of habit in this respect, and despite his gritty eyes and aching head, he dragged himself out of bed and headed for the showers at his usual time, pausing only to put the feather back in its place in his diary.

The dream followed him there, leaving him irrationally anxious all over again.  He didn't believe he could ever curse Sirius, no matter how bad things became between them, but it preyed on his mind.  He knew, rationally, that he should write to his godfather and say something, anything, to break the silence he was holding between them.  He couldn't think of a thing to say though.

Harry's feet took him to breakfast even though food was far from appealing at that moment; and only the memory of Ron's gentle needling made him force a piece of toast down.  Over his mug of tea, he wondered what to do next.  He ought, of course, to go back to his books, but he was starting to feel rather desperate at the thought.  And his head ached.

Perhaps a slow flight around the grounds and a visit to Hagrid would perk him up and get him in the mood for Quidditch practice later.

So he went back to his dormitory to collect his broom, a robe and a scarf (noticing in passing that although Blaise was now apparently up and in the bathroom, the other four were still asleep), and headed upstairs.  Rather than taking off from a courtyard, he walked slowly through the corridors and up flights of stairs until he finally reached one of the towers that had a landing pad on its roof.

The weather turned cold earlier in Scotland than elsewhere and there was, much as he'd expected, a biting cold breeze when he pushed the outer door open.  It certainly cleared the last of the sleep away from him and made his eyes water behind his spectacles for a moment or two.  He blinked furiously to clear them as he closed the door behind him, but when he turned around he discovered that he was far from alone.

There was Ron, Hermione, Luna Lovegood, Terry Boot, Hannah Abbot, Tony Goldstein and Amy Snodgrass all standing up against one of the safety walls in the lee of the turret, chatting casually.  Harry stared.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his brain still fuzzy enough for his mouth to engage independently.

"Waiting for the rest of DA to turn up," Ron replied with a grin.  "What are _you_ doing here?"

"What?  Oh.  Going for a fly."  Harry waved his Firebolt vaguely.

"Not looking like that, I hope," Hermione said, studying him critically.  "Good lord, you look dreadful.  Are you sickening for something?"

Harry backed away as she reached for his forehead.  "Gerroff.  I'm fine!"

"Maybe he's shedding a skin?" Terry suggested slyly, and Hannah gave a nervous giggle.

"Potter, don't be stupid.  You're whiter than Moaning Myrtle and you've got bloodshot eyes.  If it was anyone else, I'd assume you went on a bender last night!" Hermione scolded.

"You sure you chucked that Shrivelfig moonshine away?" Ron joked, but he looked concerned too.

"I didn't sleep very well last night, okay?  Christ!"

"Potter ..."  Tony sighed and pushed himself away from the wall.  He rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a small bottle.  "If you're determined to fly, at least take one of these first and wait for five minutes."

He tossed the bottle at Harry, who caught it in his free hand with a Seeker's ease.  "What's this?" he asked suspiciously.

"Pepper-Up capsules.  Knock a couple back - it's as good as taking a standard dose of the potion."  When Harry continued to look suspicious, Tony rolled his eyes in exasperation.  "It's just Pepper-Up!  What do you _think_ it is?  I've already put my badge on the line once this term, Potter - I'm hardly likely to poison you now, am I?"

"It really is just Pepper-Up, Harry," Amy added earnestly.  "Although you shouldn't take them if you didn't have breakfast."

"I had breakfast," Harry muttered, reluctantly giving his broom to Ron while he struggled to get the cap off the bottle.

"Yeah, right.  In which year?" Ron asked him sardonically.

"I had some toast!  I'm not stupid, you know."  Harry managed to shake a couple of capsules into his palm; they were large and a translucent red colour, like blood.  Swallowing them dry was a struggle, but within moments his ears were steaming.  Definitely Pepper-Up then.  "Why are you carrying these around with you?" he asked Tony, handing the bottle back.

"Standard issue for the Head Boy and Head Girl," Tony replied blandly.  "For all the headaches we have to deal with."

"Ha ha."

"You'd better sit down for a minute or two," Hermione told Harry.  "Sit on the wall - if you can manage it without falling over the side."

"Everyone's a comedian," Harry grumbled, but he sat down anyway.  He wished they wouldn't all stare at him.  Luna in particular was looking at him with unusual intentness.

"Red eyes make you look quite interesting," she announced kindly.

"Er ... thanks," Harry said, bemused.  "I think."

Amy stifled a giggle and sat down next to him.  "You should see Madam Pomfrey if you can't sleep," she told him.

Harry eyed her doubtfully.  The last time they'd spoken he'd ended up shouting at her, and he hadn't had an opportunity to apologise yet.  His expression seemed to amuse her, and she bumped her shoulder against his in a friendly way.

"Don't look like that!  You're forgiven."

"I am?"

"Is he?"  Tony asked in a dry tone.  "What for?"

That should have been Ron's question, Harry thought.  The redhead was looking rather put out anyway.

"Nothing you need to know about," Amy told Tony tartly.

This was productive of raised brows all around.  Ron's look was especially pointed, but there was nothing Harry could do about that with an audience there.  Hermione was regarding him with a look of rather grim amusement, as though he'd just confirmed something she'd been thinking and she couldn't decide whether to be pleased or annoyed about it.  Harry decided it was time to change the subject.

"What are you planning to do up here?" he asked.

"We're practicing dropping trap charms from a height," Hermione told him.  "Like that netting charm you used on Parkinson at the beginning of term, only vertical casting."

Harry glanced over the parapet.  "Isn't that a bit of an overkill?" he asked, noting the significant distance to the ground.

"That's the point," Tony replied.  "Accuracy degrades at a greater height, don't you know that?"

Harry gave him a quizzical look.  "And how big a threat is anyone below you going to be from this distance?  Accuracy degrades for any magic, not just trapping charms."

"That depends on how powerful the witch or wizard is," Hermione said, and the look she gave him suggested she was trying to be pointed.

"Voldemort isn't going to stand down there and lob Full Body Binds up at you," Harry retorted.  "He'll have more important things on his mind.  And apart from him, I don't think you've got much to worry about – the others'll go for a level playing field, not fart around from a distance, they're not strong enough.  Frankly, if you're planning to defend yourselves up here, then you'd be better off doing things the old fashioned way."

"Which is?" Terry demanded in a hostile tone.

Harry gave him an impatient look.  "Chuck boiling oil over the side, you berk.  That's what crenellations were put on castles for."

Terry's lip curled.  "You talk like a Muggle, Potter."

"Fuck you too, Boot."

"And what, pray, is wrong with Muggles?" Hermione asked icily.

"Easy, everyone," Tony said sharply, before Terry could respond to this.  "Terry, cut it out.  You're talking like a – "  He stopped rather abruptly and turned red.

"Like a Malfoy," Harry prompted him solemnly, although he knew perfectly well what Tony had nearly said.  _Like a Slytherin._

"Yeah," Tony said, embarrassed.

Harry decided it was time to go.  If he hung around any longer, more of their group would turn up and this was a dodgy enough encounter already with Terry, Luna and Hannah involved.  Besides, he was feeling a lot better and much more up for a flight around the school grounds.

He stood up and reached for his Firebolt, which Ron was still holding.  "Well, I'd say this has been a pleasure, but I don't tell lies unless I'm forced to so …."

"Sure you're feeling okay?" Ron asked him.

Harry raised his brows.  "I'm fine.  Really.  And it'll take more than my Firebolt for Gryffindor to win, so you might as well stop fudging and hand it over."

"It takes more than any broom," Ron said, but he let Harry take it.

"You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better."  Harry glanced across at Tony.  "Cheers, Goldstein.  I owe you one."

"I'll remember that," Tony said, and he smirked.

"Of course, you could just stay and help," Hermione suggested.  "Pay off the debt straight away."

Harry snorted.  "Two Pepper-Up pills against a morning of slow torture doesn't balance out, Granger.  I'm off."

He turned towards the open end of the landing pad and broke into a jog, hopping onto his broom just seconds before he reached the edge and swooping away.

 

xXx

 

"Fawkes gave me a feather the other day," Harry told Hagrid, as he helped him to stack enormous terracotta plant pots the size of small wash-tubs behind his hut.  Since Hagrid didn't use magic - or wasn't supposed to, at any rate - it was quicker and easier for Harry to move them with his wand.

"Did he now?" Hagrid grunted.  "Well, you're honoured then, eh?  He don't give his feathers to jus' anyone.  Last time he gave a feather was before you was born, Harry, an' Dumbledore asked him special-like for a feather or two for Ollivander."  He nodded to Harry's wand.  "Yer 'olding one of 'em, so I reckon you're twice the honoured with two o' Fawkes's feathers."

"They must be really valuable.  Snape has never mentioned using phoenix feathers in potions though.  What other things can they be used for besides wands?"

"Dunno really.  Not like they come on the market, is it?"  Hagrid picked up a bundle of kindling that looked like a young copse and dumped it up against the wall, nearer to his door.  "Ye can't buy nor sell a phoenix feather, Harry.  It's a gift, see?  If he gives it willingly for a wand, then that's different, but ye can't steal it or give money for it.  Cursed, innit?"

"Cursed?"  Harry stopped piling up the pots and turned to look at Hagrid, surprised.  "I didn't know that!  What kind of curse?"

"Bad luck an' livin' misery," Hagrid said shortly, and he shuddered a little.  "Like the breath of a Dementor on ye all yer days.  Trade in phoenix feathers is banned all over, but I reckon anyone'd be daft ter try it."

"So if a phoenix gives you a feather ...."

"Then ye keep it or ye can give it away as a gift, if yer like someone that much.  Reckon they'd 'ave to be special to ye, though."  Hagrid paused to give Harry a whiskery smile and a wink; he already knew about Ron.  "Givin' them a bit of luck, aren't ye?  Phoenix feathers is said to be lucky if yer given one."

"Why do we never get told useful things like that in class?"  Harry flicked his wand at the last of the pots and it floated into place on top of the others, settling with a scraping clunk.

"Well, most folk'll never see a phoenix," Hagrid said reasonably, "let alone get given one of its feathers.  Come on - I'll make yer a cup of tea an' maybe some of that luck'll rub off on me."

Harry followed him inside the hut and sat down at the table, accepting a huge bowl of strong tea and a piece of shortbread the size and consistency of an iron trivet.

"So.  Yer all right, aren't ye, Harry?" Hagrid said, taking a seat opposite him.  "Seem a bit down, like."

"I need to touch that feather more often," Harry joked, but he fiddled with his shortbread uncomfortably.  "There's just so much to do at the moment.  I should be studying now, really."

"Everyone has to have a break sometime.  Nothin' else botherin' ye, is there?"

Harry managed to break a chunk off the slab of shortbread and dipped it in his tea to soften it. 

"I had a bit of a row with Sirius, " he admitted.

"Well, he's got a temper on him," Hagrid said comfortably.  "Always did have.  Him and yer dad was always arguing."

"Yeah?"

"Good-natured, though.  You don't want ter be worrying about that, Harry.  Give him a few days to calm down and it'll all be fine, you see."

"It's not really like that.  I got angry with him and ... I suppose I'm not talking to him at the moment."

Hagrid looked baffled.  "Well, what did ye go an' do somethin' silly like that for?"

He was probably the only person who could get away with saying something like that to Harry without provoking an angry reaction.

Harry shrugged unhappily.  "I don't know." 

Hagrid shook his head.  "I dunno, Harry.  Reckon I never met anybody who made life as hard for himself as you do sometimes."

"Yeah," Harry mumbled.  He took a bite of his tea-soaked shortbread and managed not to break a tooth on it.

"Ye better get yerself back up to the school and write him a letter.  Sort things out."

"Dunno what to say though."

"Well, anythin's better than nothin'!" Hagrid stated with some authority.  "'Sorry' works pretty well fer most folk."

Except that "sorry" was a word Harry had a lot of issues with.  He drank his tea, wondering what he could say instead that would have the same effect.  Of course, he could simply _not_ write and wait to see what happened, but the two letters he had already received from his godparents were itching him. 

"Come on, then," Hagrid said firmly when he was done.  "Ye get on with it an' write that letter, an' see if ye don't feel better fer it."

"Yeah," Harry said reluctantly, dragging himself out of his chair.  Then he shocked himself, and probably Hagrid too, by unexpectedly hugging the half-giant.

"Tha's right," Hagrid said kindly, patting Harry's shoulder with a heavy hand.  "Off ye go, then!  Unless yer planning ter help me muck out the Screwts."

 

xXx

 

Having got that far, Harry still managed to postpone writing to Sirius.  There was Quidditch practice to attend, followed by lunch, and shortly after that another pain management session with Snape.  After that, he had to visit Madam Pomfrey again for a potion, which led to her making him rest on a couch in her office until he felt a little better. 

He was still there when Hedwig flew into the little office carrying a letter.  It was from Father Marius.

 

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I've met with His Grace the Bishop and he has agreed to your Confirmation being held on All Saints Day (November 1st).  However, there's been a complication in the arrangements.  His Grace feels that as you have shown some reluctance in the past to cooperate in your Confirmation classes, an extra gesture of good faith on your part is required.  He wants you to make a vigil, especially bearing in mind the closeness of the date to the anniversary of your parents' deaths._

 _This is actually an old tradition with Confirmations in our Church, Harry, but it hasn't been required of anyone but converts in over a hundred years.  It also presents us with a problem, because you'll be required to sit in the church overnight unaccompanied other than by myself and Father Ignatius, which is obviously a terrible risk for you.  I've tried to impress this upon His Grace, but while he appreciates the problem (he says) he is nevertheless quite adamant._

 _However, I don't want you to worry about it.  I've been in communication with your godparents and Professor Dumbledore already and we're working to see if there's some way we can accommodate the Bishop's wishes.  If the Order feel that it can't be achieved, then obviously we'll have to go back to His Grace and discuss things, but that will almost certainly mean that you won't be Confirmed before Christmas, as His Grace left for Constantinople straight after our meeting and won't be returning until the morning of the 1st November.  He'll be incommunicado until then, and I'm told his calendar is then fully booked right through Advent into the New Year._

 _Well, we'll manage something I'm sure.  I'll speak to you again very soon._

 _God be with you,_

 _Fr. Marius_

 

Harry stared at this, then looked up at Madam Pomfrey's clock.  It was a few minutes after half past two and he had a lesson with Dumbledore at half past three.  Normally he wouldn't consider going to the Headmaster so early, but under the circumstances he thought it would be excused.

"Madam Pomfrey, may I go now?"

She gave him a rather stern and purse-lipped look, but bustled over to him and ran a few diagnostic tests.  Then she shook her head and sighed. 

"I disapprove of this most strongly, Mr. Potter!  A healthy human body shouldn't have to endure pain unnecessarily.  But you seem to have recovered satisfactorily, so I suppose you can go.  But mind you take it easy for the rest of the day, and eat a proper dinner!"

"Yes, ma'am ...." 

Harry's mind was on anything but dinner as he hurried from the infirmary though.  He took an oblique route to Dumbledore's office, just in case anyone was watching for him, and presented himself to the gargoyle guarding the entrance.

"Toffee Turtles!"

The gargoyle leapt aside, revealing the familiar revolving staircase.  Harry stepped onto it and was carried up to the office. 

Dumbledore's door was open a crack and Harry could tell at once that he wasn't alone.

"... an unconscionable risk, Headmaster ..."

"I know, Severus, I know.  I've been trying to contact Drusus, but he was summoned to a conference with the Archbishop yesterday and is incommunicado.  You know how it is with the Patriarch's Basilica - one does eventually get a response to messages, but it's not unusual for it to take a decade or so ...."

So they were talking about his Confirmation.  Harry raised his hand and knocked on the door firmly.

"Come in!"  Dumbledore was watching the door sharply when Harry pushed it open, but his expression relaxed when he saw who it was.  "Ah, Harry!  Do come in."

"I'm sorry I'm so early, Professor, but I've had a letter from Father Marius ...."

"Not at all, my boy.  I too have heard from Father Marius."

Harry looked warily from Dumbledore to Snape, who was looking frustrated and annoyed, and back again.

"Professor, this is going to be really difficult to arrange, isn't it?"

"The organisational difficulties are hardly the point, Potter," Snape said in an exasperated voice.

"If it's going to put a lot of people at risk," Harry pressed on, "then maybe I should just ... not do it."

Snape snorted.  "For once we appear to be in agreement."

For a moment a fleeting look of amusement crossed the Headmaster's face.  "While I appreciate the sacrifice you're offering to make, Harry," he jibed gently, "unfortunately, the matter is somewhat more complicated than a simple Confirmation service.  Bishop Drusus Incanto wields a considerable amount of influence in the Wizengamot, and in the Omnis Arcanum Church as a whole.  If he is seen to publicly endorse you, it could be of enormous help to you and to the cause of the Order of the Phoenix."

"But do I have to do the vigil?"

"According to Father Marius, he is quite insistent on that point."  Dumbledore seemed to study Harry's face thoughtfully for a moment.  "This is a two-way bargain, Harry.  You make an important gesture of faith by undertaking the traditional vigil and making your Confirmation at the church your parents worshipped at, and in return the Bishop will give you the support of the Omnis Arcanum Church in Great Britain and the promise of a sympathetic voice in both the Wizengamot and the Patriarch's Basilica in Constantinople."

"Oh.  I see."  Put like that, Harry could appreciate the importance of it.

"I thought you might," Dumbledore murmured.  He turned to Professor Snape.  "Severus, I've spoken to Father Marius and he assures me that there was no one else privy to his conversation with the Bishop, and that Drusus was well aware of the need not to make the information of Harry's proposed vigil open to anyone else in the Church other than Father Ignatius.  Nevertheless, we will be required to inform a number of members of the Order and under the circumstances ...."

"I will keep you informed, but I have not been summoned or contacted in nearly two weeks."

"If something is afoot, I imagine you will be contacted very quickly," Dumbledore said soberly.  "We have a week to prepare, which is helpful.  Thank you, Severus.  I'll speak to you again later."

"Headmaster."  Snape half-bowed to him and turned to go, ignoring Harry who stepped aside to let him pass.

Dumbledore turned to Harry with a small smile.  "Unless you have somewhere else to be, Harry, shall we start our lesson a little earlier than planned?"

"Yes, Professor." 

Harry followed him through to the inner office, but he was preoccupied as he took his usual seat.

"Professor, what will I tell people next week when I have to go home to do the vigil?  Blaise and a couple of the others already know that I'm going to be Confirmed soon."

Dumbledore sat down next to him.  "We will consider any details later in the coming week, Harry, but for now it would be better to tell them nothing - and certainly do not mention the overnight vigil.  I believe Mr. Zabini to be quite reliable, but he has not had your training and it would be both unwise and unfair to give him any information that might render him a tempting target.  Don't forget that you were the subject of an attempted mental invasion only a few days ago.  You may not be the only person to have suffered this, but you are almost certainly the only pupil capable of recognising and repulsing such an attack."

This had occurred to Harry already, although he hadn't worried too much because he'd got the impression that Malfoy (if his attacker _had_ been Malfoy) hadn't much skill at Legilimancy.  Anyone with reasonable natural mental shields would probably not be under too much threat, and Blaise was pretty guarded.  Besides, it wasn't as though Harry had shared much in the way of useful information with him.

The one he worried about was Ron, although Ron didn't share any classes with Malfoy anymore and consequently had little or no contact with him on a day to day basis.  Harry hoped this would be enough to prevent Malfoy trying anything.

"Should I tell Ron?" he asked the Headmaster.

Dumbledore considered this.  "I should think … yes, I see no reason why not, although you should impress upon him the need to keep the information to himself.  The more people who know, the greater the danger, Harry; I know that you know this already.  It is so easy for one well-meaning person to accidentally let slip a seemingly innocuous piece of information which then somehow finds its way back to the wrong ears."

"I was hoping he'd be able to come with me," Harry admitted, and he felt his ears heat a little in spite of knowing that Professor Dumbledore was well aware of his relationship with Ron.

"That will not be possible," Dumbledore said gently but firmly.  "The vigil must be kept by you alone, under the supervision of the priests of the parish."

"I don't see how you're going to be able to guard me effectively, then," Harry said bluntly.

"A way will be found.  And Harry – while this is not precisely what we have been training you for, you are far better able to protect yourself now.  You will, of course, be on the alert at all times throughout that night."

"Yes, sir."  Of course he would.  That went without saying.

"Very well.  The details will be communicated to you in due course.  In the meantime …."

Harry suppressed a sigh and settled himself to make yet another futile attempt to enter Dumbledore's mind.

 

xXx

 

It shouldn't have preyed on his mind; indeed, for the rest of the day it didn't.  Having parted from Dumbledore after an hour (which Harry couldn't help but feel he could have used to much better purpose for all the success with Legilimancy he'd had) and had yet another headache potion with a cup of tea in the kitchens, he worked for a while on his snake (which seemed to be going better, although constructing a programme of movement used an extraordinary amount of parchment for his notes) then joined the other Slytherins for dinner and homework afterwards.

But that night was another matter.  Harry semi-awoke four or five times in the night as nightmare after nightmare conspired to make sleep nearly impossible.  Worse, he knew that these were not nightmares deliberately sent to him – it had been some time since he'd had one of those – but his own overactive imagination tormenting him with half-constructed worries.  Dawn found him lying awake in bed, exhausted but unable and unwilling to sleep.

He was just considering dragging himself out of bed when his pillowcase rippled and Rosebud pulled herself out of it near his head.  There was a note tucked into her collar again.

It occurred to Harry that if he and Ron were going to continue to communicate this way, then there surely had to be a better way for her to carry messages – perhaps a little container attached to the collar or something she could carry in her mouth, if she was willing.

 

 _Are you awake?  The sun's just hitting the greenhouses – fancy having a picnic breakfast in Greenhouse 2 with me, before anyone else gets up?_

 

He was nuts, Harry thought.  Even with the sun on it, Greenhouse 2 couldn't be all that warm yet.  He could take a cloak and one of his spare blankets though.  So he found a quill and scribbled an acceptance, and hurried to get dressed.  He was just quietly extracting a cloak from his trunk (trying to avoid waking any of his roommates) when he saw a wisp of something shimmering under some of his books and had an idea.

"You realise you're nuts, don't you?" he told Ron when he met him outside the greenhouses.

Ron grinned and shrugged.  "Maybe.  At least we won't be disturbed."

"What if Professor Sprout comes in?"

"She'll just warn us not to track compost back into the castle or something."

Harry snorted.  "I brought a blanket."

Ron hefted a basket.  "And I brought breakfast."

Harry squinted at him.  "Are you really _you_ , or are you your mum polyjuiced to look like you?"

"If I was my mum, I wouldn't be trying to drag you into the greenhouses for a helping of nookie with your breakfast," Ron retorted, amused.  He pushed the door open and a rush of unexpectedly warm air hit them.  "Besides, Professor Sprout said the other day that she'd be testing the heaters in this greenhouse over the weekend."

"And what happens if other people have had the same idea?" Harry wanted to know, as he followed Ron inside.

"At this time of the morning?  No one's stupid enough to be up this early!"

"I'll try not to take that personally," Harry grumbled.

At the back of the greenhouse was a raised bed that had been dug over recently and covered with a thick layer of chipped bark, ready for pots to stand on it over the winter.  Ron had been right; the sun was just hitting that side of the glass and with the warmth of the heaters as well it was surprisingly comfortable.  Harry spread his blanket across the bark chippings and they settled down to eat freshly toasted muffins with preserves and drink tea from a flask, all provided by the kitchen elves.

"What's up, mate?" Ron asked at length, watching Harry's face.

"Eh?"  Harry blinked.  "Nothing!"

"You look like you haven't slept much," Ron explained. 

"Oh – no, I didn't, not much.  Bad dreams."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."  Harry hesitated, remembering Dumbledore's warnings.  "Look, if I tell you what's going on, you've got to promise you won't tell Granger or anyone else."

Ron accepted this without a blink, which came as a bit of a surprise to Harry.  "Okay."

"I got a letter from Father Marius …."  In a quick undertone Harry told him about the vigil. 

"You've got to be kidding me!"  Ron looked staggered and more than a little disturbed.  "They only make Muggleborns do that these days!"

"Really?"  Harry had seen the mention of converts in Father Marius's letter, but the significance hadn't occurred to him until now. 

"Well, yeah.  Like anyone wants to spend all night on their knees in Holy Bones!  Talk about giving you the creeps and turning you off going to church for life."

"Thanks for reminding me of that!"

"Anytime!"  Ron snorted a laugh, but quickly sobered again.  "But Harry, that's a big risk.  What the hell are they thinking?  This is _you_ we're talking about."

"I know, but Father Marius and Dumbledore both seem to think that the Bishop's insisting on it because it's me.  Dumbledore said that I have make a gesture of good faith, because the Bishop knows I don't really want to be Confirmed.  He wants me to do it before he'll give me his support in the Wizengamot."

"That's got to be a crock of shit," Ron said sceptically.  "Making a vigil isn't going to turn you into a believer overnight!"

"Maybe they're expecting a miracle," Harry suggested blandly.

"Ha ha!  Bishop Incanto Confirmed me," Ron continued, "and I had to talk to him at the party afterwards – "

"There's a party?"

"Usually, yeah."

"Well, that's something," Harry said grudgingly.  "At least it won't be a _complete_ waste of time."

"Shut up a minute!  I had to talk to him and he was – well, I don't reckon he's stupid.  Not by a long shot.  He's got those eyes like Dumbledore has, like he can see right through you."

Harry thought about the man he'd met at his Coming of Age party and concluded that Ron was right.  "Well, that's what Dumbledore said and while he was a bit bothered about the Bishop asking for the vigil, he wasn't acting like it was something completely nuts that he wasn't expecting him to do."

"I would have thought Dumbledore would try to change his mind," Ron observed.

"The Bishop's in Constantinople – I overheard Dumbledore telling Snape.  Something about it being difficult getting a message into a basilica?"

"The Patriarch's Basilica?  That's where the Archbishop lives.  The whole church is run from there and there's a school for Omnis Arcanum priests."

"Right."  Harry sighed.  "Anyway, he said he'd try to contact him but he didn't seem very hopeful about it.  They're all assuming I'm going to have to do it, although _how_ they're going to guard me when I'm supposed to be alone in the church except for Father Ignatius and Father Marius, I don't know.  I don't reckon either of them are going to be much of a bodyguard, so I'm pretty much on my own.  Dumbledore even _said_ that."

"Maybe I could come with you," Ron suggested.

Harry smiled at him, but shook his head.  "No, you can't.  I asked Dumbledore and he said definitely not."

"I was hoping I could come to the service anyway.  Do you think they'd let me?"

"I don't know.  If you can't travel with me to the vigil, I don't know how you'll get there in time.  Besides, I got the impression that Dumbledore wasn't just talking about the vigil.  Look, I've had an idea – what if we just don't ask?" 

Ron frowned.  "What do you mean?"

"Well, if we ask and they say no, they might be on the lookout for you trying to sneak off anyway.  But if we don't ask …."  Harry pulled something out of the pocket inside his cloak which had been making a fairly substantial lump there.  "Maybe you could just disappear?"

Ron stared.  "Is that your Invisibility Cloak?"

"Yeah."  Harry gave it to him.  "It's pretty big on me, so it should cover you okay.  You could duck into Hogsmeade early on Saturday morning and use the Floo in the Three Broomsticks – no, better make it the Hog's Head – and go to the Manor.  I reckon Sirius and Remus won't mind if you just turn up like that – they did some pretty sneaky stuff themselves when they were our age, so they can't say all that much.  Then they can take you to church with them."

"If I'm going to do that, then I could come with you for the vigil," Ron suggested.

Harry looked doubtful.  "I don't know about that.  Dumbledore didn't definitely say you couldn't come to the service, so we could fudge that, but he was pretty clear about the vigil.  Besides, I don't know what the arrangements are going to be to get me there or anything, and I reckon they won't tell me until the last minute.  I might not be able to contact you."

"Okay."  Ron looked resigned.  He carefully folded up the cloak and tucked it into his own inside pocket, shooting Harry a small grin as he did so.  "Sure you trust me with this?"

Harry grinned back at him.  "That's the sort of question people ask about me!"

"I dunno ... I reckon I can get up to a lot in five or six days with this."

"Go for it," Harry told him, amused.  "Just don't get caught or it could get confiscated, and that'd be a nuisance because it's dead useful."

"Only a nuisance?" Ron asked, raising a brow.

"It'd be a bit of a fag having to nick it back," Harry explained, making his friend laugh.

 

xXx

 

Monday seemed like an awfully long day to Harry.  He had double Transfiguration in the morning and a single Herbology session in the afternoon, followed by an hour with Professor Flitwick working on his snake and practicing his control over a number of other models the Charms professor had brought out of storage for his lessons. 

Flitwick had also received a bundle of translated examination papers from his Animator colleagues in Germany.  He seemed a little doubtful about some of them - "A lot of very old-fashioned nonsense, Mr. Potter, quite outmoded and unsuitable for a modern Animator" - and informed Harry that he would consult with the Headmaster on those that were suitable, with a view to Harry taking one of the tests later in the week.

This at least felt like progress to Harry.  He had been waiting all day for a summons to a duelling lesson only for his diary to remain resolutely blank, which seemed odd in the light of the forthcoming event at the weekend.  On the other hand, Monday was also a full moon and while he wasn't sure why that might make a difference to his schedule, it was the only reason he could come up with.

So that evening he settled into a quiet corner of the library to work on his homework again, and to uneasily re-read Sirius and Remus's letters to him.  His promise to Hagrid (well, not really a promise, but he knew Hagrid would see it as one) was at the forefront of his mind, and in any case he knew he couldn't keep running away from this.  He would have to see them at the end of the week and it would be a difficult meeting if he didn't sort things out.

But what the hell was he supposed to say?

There was no point in writing to Remus today anyway, Harry told himself.  He would be prowling the gardens by now, and Sirius usually tried to intercept any mail to him just before the full moon in case it got shredded.  Writing to him today, especially if he didn't get the wording just right, could only provoke matters.

Which was no excuse not to write to Sirius, of course.  Harry reluctantly took out a clean sheet of paper and dipped his quill into his ink bottle.

 

 _Dear Sirius -_

 

And he stopped.  What next? 

 

 _Dear Sirius, I'm not two years old, you know.  Why should I care if you're having a baby?_

 _Dear Sirius, What has your guilt trip over Snape, Wormtail and your brother got to do with me?_

 _Dear Sirius, You don't have to prove anything to me about how good a father you're going to be -_

 

Harry gave up.  It was no use; he had no idea what to say, let alone how to say it.  Anything that came out of his mouth or pen on the subject seemed likely to inflame things even more than they were already, for no matter what he wanted to say something more aggressive seemed to issue itself regardless, and he'd reached the point where he was tired of the row and wanted it done with.  On the other hand, he didn't want to look like he was grovelling for forgiveness either.

Moral dilemmas.  Harry hated moral dilemmas.  Life would be so much simpler if he could just hate everyone with a good conscience.  Morality was less of an issue when you hated someone ….  Golly, that was a concept that would make Mr. Pettifer weep.

Not that he'd ever really hated Sirius, except for those few minutes in the Shrieking Shack when he'd been convinced that his godfather had really killed his parents.

There had to be a way to make amends with someone without looking a prat or admitting a fault.  People sent flowers or chocolates, he supposed, but that was only for girls.  Besides, Sirius would think he'd lost it completely if he did something quite that out of character.

He'd bought Ron a kneazle kitten.  But that was _Ron_.

And Sirius didn't like kneazles or cats much.

Harry let himself slide down in his chair until his chin was resting on his hands, level with the table top.  If he was going to send something, it had to convey the right message.  He just wasn't sure that something existed that said _I'm not admitting I was wrong, but can we be friends again?_  

His eyes fell on the diary, which was still not vibrating to let him know he had a duelling lesson.  It was lying open with Fawkes's feather resting on top of the two letters he'd received ....

Perhaps something did exist after all.

 

xXx

 

Having made that decision, Harry still waited.  He couldn't visit the owlery late on the Monday night, and he reasoned with himself that if it had been one of those difficult full moons, then neither of his godparents would be in a fit state to care about mail on the Tuesday.  But by Wednesday morning he had no excuses, so he went up the owlery before breakfast and despatched Hedwig with his missive.

The day started out with its usual dragging lessons - double DADA and a free session, before lunch.  It was a cold day and lunch was a hearty vegetable soup with crusty bread rolls, so Harry's mind was mostly on his meal and he didn't notice that Malfoy was missing until the table was completely full and the empty seat between Goyle and Pansy opposite him was obvious.  Even then he didn't attach any particular significance to it, as there was no requirement on senior years to attend the midday meal and he missed lunch quite frequently himself.

It did seem odd that Malfoy's cronies should all be there without him, though.

"He's been called home," Blaise said, when Harry asked him under the cover of setting out their books in Transfiguration.  "His mother's ill."

"Really?"  Harry wondered if this was true or if there was a more sinister significance.

"She's pregnant, supposedly," Blaise added.

"Yeah, I know.  I heard about it over the summer."  Perhaps it was pregnancy-related.  Not that Harry knew much about such things.  "Has she had a miscarriage or something?"

"No idea.  He wouldn't tell me even if she had, but I don't think they'd call him home for that."  Blaise shrugged slightly.  "She must really be ill."

He sounded thoroughly indifferent, a sentiment Harry couldn't help sympathising with.  Malfoy had been needling Blaise about his grandfather's ill-health ever since they returned to school, and by now it had to be obvious to everyone who heard him that Antonio Zabini's illness wasn't natural and that the Malfoys were somehow involved in the matter.  Why someone had decided that the Zabini _paterfamilias_ should be subjected to something as malicious as a slow-acting poison or curse, when Death Eater actions were normally far more direct, Harry didn't know.  

Perhaps it didn't matter why.  The problem with the Death Eaters was that they didn't always need a logical or consistent reason for the things they did.  Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy - the so-called cream of pureblooded society - were a relative minority in Voldemort's organisation, and they were vastly outnumbered by the 'lesser' foot soldiers who tended to be made up of the dregs of wizard society.  They weren't just the most desperate elements of the dispossessed and disaffected, such as werewolves and other badly treated minorities, but the worst elements that formed any human society - criminals, deviants and those whose moral compass was so badly skewed that they were almost as big a danger to the Death Eaters as they were to everyone else.

"They wouldn't have let him go home if it wasn't serious," Blaise concluded.  "Let's hope he's gone a while.  I won't miss him."

"Except that we'll have to put up with Parkinson screeching even more than usual," Harry observed, and Blaise snorted his agreement.

Harry might have brooded on the Malfoy situation more if he hadn't been too busy concentrating on his Transfiguration work.  Following that was Divination where Professor Trelawney, having hmmed and hahhed and procrastinated for the previous four years, finally could no longer avoid covering the topic of hallucinogens in prognostication.  This was heralded by a long, rambling and largely unhelpful lecture about the dangers attached to the various practices and how as responsible adults the Seventh Year pupils had a duty not to misuse any of the substances she was going to introduce them to.

Considering how most members of the class perked up at this introduction to the subject, Harry thought that she probably had good reason to be concerned, but he rather thought that the Headmaster should be more concerned still.  Trelawney was hardly the most appropriate professor Harry could think of to oversee a lesson involving hallucinogenic drugs.  For one thing, he knew she was a borderline alcoholic herself.  He supposed that she must have some reserves of self control if she'd managed to resist taking drugs over the years despite coming into close contact with them, but frankly he didn't feel reassured.

Harry himself felt no temptation whatsoever, only a mild tickling of annoyance.  This was one section of the Divination course that he was genuinely interested in, considering how it intersected with Potions and Herbology, but he suspected that the class would be constantly disrupted by the idiotic behaviour of some of the others from now on.  When he looked at Ron, though, the redhead only looked mildly amused, and he was scribbling something onto a tiny bit of parchment which he presently slipped across the table to Harry.

 

 _I bet Snape loves having to give Trelawney peyote and Christ knows what else for her lessons!_

 

Harry smothered a grin.

That was the only moment of amusement he had though.  As expected, people like Seamus Finnigan and Zacharias Smith behaved like idiots and the frowns of some of the others - Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown in particular - only seemed to encourage them.  Professor Trelawney was hopeless at handling such situations and the class seemed to split into two unequal halves, with the troublemakers on one side and those who were deeply unamused on the other with a thin line of people like Ron, who fell into neither camp, inadvertently acting as a buffer.  Harry was pleased to see that the only other Slytherins in the class, Daphne and Tracy, both followed his example and gave everyone else the cold shoulder, but it was an unsatisfactory hour capped by Professor Trelawney losing her temper and assigning them each a roll of parchment on the various substances legitimately used by Seers and the history of the legal restrictions imposed upon them by the International Confederation of Wizards.

Ron slipped him another note as they were packing up their books.

 

 _See you in the library after dinner?_

 

Harry nodded discreetly, thinking that they could get a head start on their essay together, but halfway through dinner he could feel his book bag vibrating slightly at his feet and when he took out his diary the little image of Fawkes was peering at him again next to an entry that summoned him to -

\- _the Headmaster's garden?_

Damn.  And he couldn't think of a way to get word to Ron that he wouldn't be able to meet with him after all, unless ....

Harry rummaged in his book bag.  Writing on a bit of parchment inside the bag without being overseen was not easy and he wasn't sure that his writing would be entirely legible, but it would have to do.  Then he brushed his fingers over the cover of a library book he'd been intending to return, forcing an illusion of a different title altogether over the surface.  The effort of doing this without his wand made him sweat a little, but he felt it was worth it.

"When you've quite finished poking me with your elbow ..." Blaise said.

"Sorry."  Harry pulled the book out.  "Found it finally!  I'll see you later, okay?"

"I'll be in the infirmary, getting my bruises treated," Blaise retorted humorously.

Harry wasn't the only pupil leaving the dinner table early so his heading towards the far exit for a change wasn't especially noticeable.

"Oy, Granger!" he said as he came abreast of her seat at the end of the Gryffindor table.

"What do you want, Potter?" Seamus demanded.

Harry raised his brows at the Irishman.  "When did you grow tits and a Head Girl badge, Finnigan?  Or have you been smoking that wacky baccy you palmed in Trelawney's classroom already?"

"Stop it, the pair of you!" Hermione said sharply, shooting Seamus a quelling look when it looked like he was about to jump out of his seat.  She turned back to Harry.  "Do you want something, Potter?"

"Only to return your book to you," Harry said, pulling the illusion-covered book out of his bag and holding it out. 

Hermione took it, frowning.  "I didn't lend you a book ...."

"I found it under the desk in Transfiguration," he lied casually.  "It's got your name inside the cover, anyway.  Got to say, Granger, you've got some nerve to read a book like that under McGonagall's nose."

"What in the world do you mean?"  Hermione glanced down at the cover - and let out a tiny shriek, quickly stuffing it under the table out of sight.

Harry grinned and set off briskly for the main doors.  Behind him he could hear the other Gryffindor seventh years demanding to know what the book was and Hermione furiously telling them to mind their own business.  He felt pretty sure that the mention of her name being inside the cover would prompt her to open it and find the note he'd left for Ron - he just hoped that she also realised the cover was an illusion and removed it before returning the book to Madam Pince.

Hermione's outrage he could deal with, but not the school librarian's.

 

xXx

 

By the time Harry had run down to the dormitories, put all his books away except for his Legilimancy text (always supposing he would need it - why would he be having a Legilimancy lesson in the Headmaster's garden though?), got changed and ran back up the stairs and out into the courtyard, it was already growing dark.  In spite of Malfoy not being at school, he took a roundabout route to the gardens just in case he had another follower, and made sure there was no one around before he whispered the password that opened the gate into Dumbledore's garden.

Surrounded by tall conifer hedges, it was dark inside but before Harry could wonder why the lamps hadn't lit themselves he felt the tip of a wand pressed into his neck and froze.

"A typical little hero, aren't we, Potter?" Snape's voice said coldly.  "You receive a message to come to the gardens after dark, and without so much as questioning why you come running."

"So would you, if the message came from Fawkes," Harry retorted, bristling.

Behind him the gate closed itself and several wands suddenly lit up, revealing four masked and heavily cloaked figures besides Snape.

"Less than forty-eight hours from now, Potter, you will begin your vigil at the Church of the Holy Bones," Snape continued in the same icy, contemptuous tone.  "It will be sixteen years to the day and hour since your parents met their deaths at the Dark Lord's hand.  The timing is very significant, both to the Bishop of Avebury, who wishes - surely in vain - for you to dwell upon their sacrifice for you, and to the Dark Lord who, should he hear of this, will undoubtedly consider it to be two points in a long line meeting and closing to form a perfect circle.  You will be alone in the church excepting the presence of two priests who will present little or no challenge to anyone who manages to pass the Order guards and enter the building with malign intent.  In other words, Potter, you will be helpless but for whatever meagre skills you might possess."

Harry gritted his teeth at the relish with which Snape pronounced these final words.

"Be a bit of a nuisance if I die, won't it?" he said in a studiously casual voice.

The point of the wand dug into his neck a little more sharply. 

"Don't be flippant, Potter.  We are all giving up our valuable time and risking our livelihoods in order to be here tonight, to try and ensure that you are prepared!"

"When the two of you have finished flirting with each other ...." Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice drawled, and Harry felt Snape actually recoil from him in a way that he would laugh about later.  The Auror stepped forward and briefly raised his mask.  "Potter, the point of this is that on Friday night you could be caught out in the dark or in a place that's badly lit.  You could be cold, stiff from kneeling, exhausted from trying to keep awake for up to twelve hours, hungry, thirsty or feeling nauseated and disorientated from the incense fumes.  And if you _are_ caught out, you'll almost certainly be outnumbered.  We can't recreate all of those conditions, but it's cold and dark out here and it's the end of a long day.  Let's see what you can learn from this.  Tonks?"

"Take your cloak, robe, scarf and gloves off, Harry," she said cheerfully.  "We can't have you all warmly wrapped up for this.  And there's a nice stone bench next to this gravel pathway that you can use like a pew ...."

Harry suppressed a groan.

 

xXx

 

He was glad afterwards that he'd taken the time to change out of his uniform; God only knew how he'd have explained the damage away even to incurious roommates like Goyle and Crabbe, let alone Blaise.  His jeans were already rather abused, though, so a _reparo_ mended the worst of the new damage and his cloak covered the rest until he could grab his pyjamas and retreat to the bathroom to change and take a hot shower.

He was cold, sweaty, dirty, singed and it was well past curfew.  Knowing that Snape would not excuse him if he was caught by an unfriendly prefect, in spite of knowing where he had been, Harry counted himself lucky to have got back to Slytherin unseen.

When Blaise came into the bathroom while he was in the shower, he knew it had been too much to hope that he could get into bed unchallenged as well.

"Another of those extra lessons with Dumbledore?" he asked Harry dryly.

"Silence the door before you ask questions like that," Harry retorted, wrapping towels around himself.

Blaise flicked his wand at the door and turned back to him.  "Too much of this doesn't add up, Potter," he continued, looking annoyed.  "So your magic has been unstable – that can happen to anyone, but it's not enough to explain all your little disappearances, and it doesn't explain the burn marks and rips and God knows what else on your clothes!"

"So what do you think's happening?" Harry demanded.  He began to towel his hair briskly; in spite of the steam in the bathroom, he was starting to feel cold again and wanted to make as quick an exit as he could.

Blaise took a deep breath.  "I have to assume that you're being trained to face … _Him._ "

"And did you come up with that idea on your own or did Malfoy suggest it before he went home?" Harry asked coolly.

"Give me some credit!  I'm not stupid, Potter!  The amount of weird stuff that goes on around you every day is phenomenal.  You have the most free periods in your timetable of anyone in our year, and yet you never seem to have any free time – and I'm not the only person who's noticed that.  You disappear for odd hours and come back looking as though you just got into a cat fight behind the broomsheds.  You never seem to get enough sleep or eat normal meals, you sleepwalk through DADA but concentrate on Transfiguration and Potions as though your life depends on it, and people like the Head Boy seem to make a hobby out of looking after your interests." 

Blaise let out an exasperated and disbelieving snort.  "No wonder You-Know-Who _and_ the Minister both want you dead – if you're doing this at school, what on earth will you do at the Ministry when you're old enough to sit on the Wizengamot?"

"You can tell them from me that they haven't got anything to worry about."  Harry grabbed his pyjamas and began to drag them on.  "I'm no kind of politician and never will be."

Blaise rolled his eyes.  "That's the trouble, you idiot.  You don't need to be a politician at all.  You're _charismatic_."

"You haven't been buying funny green cigarettes off Seamus Finnigan, have you?" Harry demanded, alarmed.

"Why do you think my grandfather supported yours?" Blaise snapped.  "The Potters have always had a gift for this sort of thing!  Your grandfather could have been Minister – Grandpapa told me that he always looked twice at the things even Dumbledore did, but he never hesitated to follow Henry Potter because he was a man who could be trusted to get things done the right way.  Your father could have been someone like that too.  Why do you think You Know Who wanted him out of the way?"

Harry finished buttoning his pyjama jacket and picked up his things.  Then he looked at Blaise.  He wasn't unmoved by what the other boy was saying, but it was entirely the wrong time for Harry – he didn't want to hear it and had no strength either to process it or to force the information away.

"How is your grandfather, Blaise?" he asked flatly.

Blaise's face tightened fractionally.  "No worse, but no better either."

"That's why you need to stop asking questions and back away," Harry told him.  "Stuff like that has a habit of happening to people around me, and usually it's _because_ of me."

"I made my choice back in the summer," Blaise said, and he too suddenly looked very tired.  "It's a choice my grandfather supports, regardless of the effect it has on his health."

"And I appreciate that, but I don't much like people being made a sacrifice on my account."

"That's a stupid thing to say, you know, Harry, considering that you're obviously being trained to sacrifice yourself."

Harry blinked at the unfamiliar use of his first name.  "There's not a lot anyone can do about that," he said.  "He's been trying to kill me for a long time.  That has to end somehow, sometime, and I'm not about to just lie down and take it."

 

xXx

 

Thursday was a remarkably quiet day.  Once again, Harry spent much of it expecting to be summoned to more duelling lessons during his free period after Herbology, but when the summons came it was from Professor Flitwick rather than the Headmaster and instead he spent the free hour before lunch taking an impromptu examination with one of the approved papers that had been sent by the German Animator to Professor Flitwick.

This was at least interesting and instructive though.  Harry was surprised at how much he already knew, and the things that he didn't know didn't come as a surprise to him.  Professor Flitwick also seemed very well pleased with his performance, although he solemnly told Harry that it was important not to read too much into things until the paper had been assessed by an independent colleague from the Brotherhood of Master Animators.

The rest of the day followed his usual routine.  He had been hoping to see Ron in the evening, but he got a brief note from his friend to say that he'd received a detention from Professor Snape that afternoon, so Harry spent the evening in the Slytherin Common Room mediating disputes between the lower years and toying with his DADA homework.

Friday dawned, very grey and damp.  Still not sure how things would be managed so that he could attend the vigil that night, Harry went to Divination.  Thanks to the Animation lesson the previous day and his impromptu duelling session on Wednesday evening, he hadn't made much headway on his homework but while he was far from being the only one to ask Professor Trelawney for an extension of time, he was one of the few not to get on her bad side in the process.  For once it was Seamus Finnigan's tragic maiming that was written in the heavy smoke of her burning herbs and resins, along with a side serving of misery and chaos for the rest of the class.  Harry wondered if this sudden refusal to divine his own imminent and painful demise should be taken as a good or bad omen for him.

Ron managed to catch his sleeve as they were packing up to leave the classroom and go to lunch.

"Everything okay?" he asked softly.

Harry nodded, then shrugged.  "I suppose."

"Do you know when yet?"

"Nope."  Harry thought it likely that he wouldn't be told now until the very last minute.  He smiled faintly at his friend.  "If I don't see you before …."

"Yeah.  You be careful."

"You know me," Harry replied and they shot each other a quick grin before following the others down the silver ladder and going their separate ways.

Potions followed lunch and with Malfoy out of the way Harry was once again partnered with Tony Goldstein.  They made reasonable headway with their work – as, indeed, did everyone else in the class with the main source of unrest among them temporarily removed. 

Then, with less than ten minutes to go, Harry began to feel strange.  His stomach began to roil at the smell from the potion he and Tony had just brewed, his vision blurred and he found himself suddenly sitting on the floor with no recollection of how he got there.

"Potter?"

Harry gagged but was grateful when he wasn't actually sick.  What the hell - ?

"Move aside, Goldstein!" 

Cold fingers grabbed his chin, and Harry blinked and squinted at the indistinct face before him.

"Potter, are you allergic to lotus blossoms?"

"I don't know, sir," he managed.  There had been dried lotus blossoms in the potion – not a common ingredient and he couldn't remember if he'd ever been exposed to more than the root before.

"Fool!  Mr. Goldstein, finish what you are doing and pack up Potter's bag for him.  Deliver it to Mr. Zabini after class.  The rest of you, dismissed!  Potter, come with me."

With a bony hand under his arm it was impossible for Harry to do anything else.  He stumbled after Snape into the professor's inner office, his surroundings misty and indistinct, and was left reeling in the middle of the room while Snape went to the fireplace and tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the embers.

"Infirmary!  Potter has had a bad reaction to the potion he was brewing.  I'm sending him through."

That was unusual, but Harry wasn't given an opportunity to question it; Snape returned, grabbing his arm and all but dragging him to the fireplace, where he was shoved into the grate and whisked away.  He emerged in Madam Pomfrey's office and nearly vomited onto her shoes.

The matron tutted, annoyed, but her tone was kindly as she steadied him and pushed half of a large purple lozenge into his hand. 

"Here, Potter – swallow this at once."

The idea was even more nauseating but she was insistent, so Harry forced it down and accepted the glass of water she offered to wash it away.

The nausea faded and his vision cleared, leaving Harry feeling perfectly well.  Madam Pomfrey was watching him with an expectant face.

"Better?  It took quite a bit of ingenuity to get the other half of that pastille into your lunch!"

Harry blinked at her, confused.  "What?"

"An invention of the Weasley Twins', I'm told," she explained.  "We won't go into what they call it or why they developed it, but one half makes you sick and the other half makes you better.  The Headmaster thought the simplest way to extract you for the weekend without raising undue suspicions was to make you poorly.  If any of your friends ask for you, they'll be told you're in the infirmary with an infectious tummy bug."

"I'm leaving now?"

"Of course you are, silly boy!  You have to go home, put on your formal clothes and get to the church before sundown."  Madam Pomfrey held out a glass specimen jar.  "The headmaster has provided a one-way portkey, under the circumstances."

"But – my trunk – "

"You have your wand, don't you?  Then you don't need anything else."  She put the jar into his hands sharply.  "No more questions, Potter!  Three – two – one – "

Harry felt a familiar jerk behind his navel and the infirmary disappeared with a rush.  The effect was like being sucked into a tornado, and for several seconds he was spun and thrown about like a rag doll until the portkey released him with distressing abruptness and dropped him into the middle of the kitchen at Black Manor.

"There you are," Remus said, looking relieved.

 

xXx

 

"Fancyriggs made you up a set of formal robes from your last fitting," Sirius remarked, as he and Remus acted as Harry's valets.

"Why are the cravats black?" Harry wanted to know.  "And what are the black bands on the robes for?"

"At sundown it'll be sixteen years to the hour since your parents died," Remus replied quietly, holding out Harry's shoes one at a time for him to put on. "Full mourning only lasts a year, unless you're trying to make a point, but semi-mourning is appropriate on an occasion like this.  All right, tuck your shirt in."

"Do you remember how to tie your cravat?" Sirius asked.

"I think so."

"Right.  Let me check your collar a second – yes, that's fine.  Here you go …."  Sirius laid the first cravat across Harry's outstretched hands.

It took four attempts to get the cravat right, but Harry counted that a success.  The last time he'd worn formal robes, it had taken seven.  Remus helped him into his waistcoat – black silk background criss-crossed with fine green lines forming lozenge shapes, and a tiny gold stag's head embroidered inside each lozenge – and Sirius gave him his grandfather's beautiful heirloom pocket watch, which Harry soberly attached to the loop on one side of the waistcoat and tucked into the little pocket on the other side.  Then the two of them helped him into his robe, which was winter-weight bottle green wool on the outside and gold satin on the inside.  There were wide black bands on the sleeves and hem, and a black ring around the badge on his lapel that held his family crest.

"There's a cloak as well," Remus said, when the robes were settled neatly on his shoulders.  "You'll need it – it's a cold night."

"And a hat," Sirius added, holding it out.  It looked a little like a top hat with an unusually low crown and Harry took it unenthusiastically. 

"When this is all over," Sirius said, in a different voice, "you and I need to talk."

"I'll have to go straight back to school, won't I?" Harry said evasively.

"There'll be time," his godfather said firmly.

"Which there isn't now," Remus warned, and Sirius seemed to accept this, backing off.

"Come on, we'd better get you to the church."

Harry caught sight of himself in the long mirror inside his wardrobe door as he left his room; once again he'd switched personalities, and instead of Harry Potter the trouble-making nobody there was that near-stranger, Henry Potter the Younger.  It was no good; he didn't believe he would ever get used to that, let alone like it.  It was a vision of himself that he didn't recognise, and he wondered gloomily if he would ever accustom himself to living the life of a stranger.

Although the real question, of course, was whether he would be given the opportunity.

 

xXx

 

They left Sirius at the Manor to await those other members of the Order who would be joining him for his watch at the church at midnight.  Remus was on the first shift, however, and he accompanied Harry to the Church of the Holy Bones.

Father Marius was waiting for them in the porch, along with Daedalus Diggle, Sturgess Podmore, Hestia Jones, Charlie Weasley (whom Harry recognised mostly by his red hair and resemblance to Ron's father) and another wizard called Titus Knock who was unknown to Harry.

The curate smiled warmly at Harry.  "Good to see you, Harry!  Are you ready?"

"No," Harry muttered.  It wasn't six o'clock yet; he was starting to wonder how he would survive more than twelve hours of solitary silence.

"It'll be fine.  You'll need your cloak, though – I've lit the candle lamps and set a couple of warming charms, but they don't work very effectively in a place like Holy Bones, I'm afraid.  It's going to be a chilly night."

"How's Father Ignatius?" Remus asked.

"He's up, I'm glad to say, but I suggested he should stay at the presbytery this evening just in case and he said he will."

"Has there been any word from the Bishop?"

"None, I'm afraid."  The young priest's face was creased with concern.  "I was rather hoping Professor Dumbledore might be able to contact him and persuade him to cancel this, but no luck.  We'll just have to make the best of it."

"Apparently so."  Remus looked up at the sky, which was already starting to turn a darker shade of blue as sundown approached, and grimaced.  "Well, we'd better get on with it.  To your posts, people.  Harry …."  Harry looked at him.  For a moment Remus seemed at a loss for words, then he settled for drawing him into a half-hug, careful of his cravat and robes.  "God bless you and keep you safe."

Harry just about managed not to roll his eyes, despite his own inner tensions.  Personally, he would be happier if God stayed out of it.  The less supernatural interference in this whole business, the better.

The Order members quietly slipped away and with a final meaningful look at Harry, Remus followed them, leaving Harry to remove his hat and reluctantly trail after Father Marius into the church.

Always dark in a way that no amount of candles or witch-lights could entirely dispel, the ancient little Church of the Holy Bones was not a comforting building like some Roman Catholic and Church of England churches, and it was set at an even further remove from the more up-to-date and minimalist chapels of other Christian denominations.  The Omnis Arcanum Church had its roots in a far older branch of Christianity and whilst it had some superficial resemblance to the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodoxy, it was entirely its own entity with its own history, traditions and version of the Bible.  And while the outside of Holy Bones might look rather rustic and charming, the interior was far from "cosy".  The name derived from the multitude of bones it was lined and decorated with, a physical reminder to generations of communicants of the dead whose graves had been desecrated during the earliest of the Goblin Rebellions.

Harry detested it.  To him, the whole building was a living mausoleum of the most unpleasant kind, full of constant reminders not of the suffering of early generations of wizards and witches but simply of death and the fact that even when you were dead people couldn't let you rest in peace.  To make artwork, even religious artwork, out of human bones was repulsive and macabre, and more than that he felt it was disrespectful.  To see each pew lit at either end by a lamp made of a child's skull on a post made him feel nauseous, and he always expected to encounter an unpleasant smell when he entered the church, although in fact the bones were long since cleaned and dry and the building smelled of nothing more than incense and beeswax polish.

And he was going to have to spend a whole night here.  Why on earth had he agreed to it?  The kind regard of the Bishop of Avebury was not enough to compensate him for this.

Father Marius led the way down the stone-flagged aisle to a pew at the front which bore the crest of the Potter family on a wooden plaque below one of the little skull-lamps.  A flat cushion – taken from the Black family pew, judging by the dark blue velvet and faded silver crest – had been placed on the usually bare wooden seat nearest to the aisle, and a thick kneeler, a Bible and a prayer book had been set before it.

"Here, Harry …."  Father Marius's voice was lowered.  "It'll be sundown in a matter of minutes, so get yourself settled in.  A vigil is conducted in silence or as near to silence as can be managed, but if you do need to speak to me or Father Ignatius you should whisper."

"Okay."  Although Harry wondered if Father Ignatius would hear him if he whispered.  He was a very old man.

"Vigils are usually only undertaken by converts these days and the advice given to them is to sit and contemplate what their intentions are by making the conversion, interspersed by prayer and selected reading of suitable Bible tracts."  Father Marius grinned at Harry for a moment.  "You're a little different, but there's no reason why you can't pray if the mood takes you – " his grin widened at Harry's sceptically raised brow, "contemplate your coming Confirmation and read from the Bible if you want to.  It's going to be a long and chilly night so I'd recommend not kneeling too much, although it'd be a good idea to kneel and look like you're praying if Father Ignatius comes in.  He'll appreciate that."  He winked and Harry relaxed a little, grinning back.  "I'll give you a discreet nudge if you look like you're nodding off, okay?  Great.  Have a seat."

The cushion on the pew was welcome for even wooden seats could be cold, especially wooden seats that were made of oak so old that it was black and hard and almost fossilised.  Harry sat down, tugging his cloak around him to keep out any drafts, and resigned himself to fourteen hours of slightly creepy boredom.

He told himself that he was not going to allow his surroundings to prey on his overactive imagination.  There were other things he could think about, like the Hallowe'en feast he was missing at Hogwarts.  Muggle kids would be getting ready to go trick-or-treating by now, dressing up in what they fondly imagined to be representations of entirely fictitious witches and wizards, in vampire, werewolf, zombie and skeleton costumes ….  Harry eyes fell on the bone-ornamented altar.  If only those Muggle kids knew what _really_ lay behind their costumes.  Not a good thought.  He tried to think of something else.

Of course, Hallowe'en had been the night his parents had been murdered by Voldemort – Voldemort, who had been vanquished by baby Harry only to return thirteen years later, resurrected through a potion made of blood and flesh and bone ….

No, he wasn't going to think of that either.  With an effort Harry dragged his mind away from all the morbid topics it wanted to dwell on and instead made himself list stars and constellations, details from the Zodiac, methods of divination, the Latin names of magical herbs; anything from his school texts to keep his mind busy and away from emotive subjects.

That seemed to work, but Father Marius was right – it was going to be a _very_ long night.

 

xXx

 

Some hours later Harry felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see his mentor smiling down at him wryly.

"You were drifting a bit," the young priest whispered.  "Nothing to worry about.  Are you all right?"

Harry nodded, remembering just in time that he wasn't supposed to speak unless there was a pressing need.

"Good.  I'm just going to take your guards a hot drink – they must be frozen out there.  I won't be long."  Father Marius nodded to Harry and slipped away, his soft shoes making little noise against the stone flags. 

Harry stretched a little inside his cloak, smothered a yawn, and wondered if he was allowed to get up and stretch his legs for a minute or two.  He felt as though he'd taken root to the pew.  He also wondered what time it was; the church had lots of long, low-set windows on one side but they were stained glass and in any case let in very little light even on a bright summer day.  Wriggling his fingers, he slipped a hand inside his robes and eased his grandfather's pocket watch out, pressing the catch to open it.  It was self-illuminating, a very soft tiny light but enough to see the two dials.  One was composed of arcane symbols and Harry had yet to discover what it measured or meant, but the other was an ordinary twelve hour dial, albeit very delicate and beautifully worked.  It was barely eleven o'clock, which was later than he'd expected but it still left the better part of nine hours to go.  Harry grimaced and closed the watch again, carefully putting it back into his waistcoat pocket.

He wondered if there was anything else he could list.  Ways to make Sirius throw a fit, perhaps.

Ways to force Snape to wash his hair.

Ways to make Neville Longbottom's cauldron explode – _that_ one would take a while.

Ways to make Hermione Granger storm off in a huff.

Ways to upset the entire Hufflepuff Seventh Year.

Ways to catch the Snitch from under the Ravenclaw Seeker's nose.

Ways to get Ron to kiss him.

Ways to get Ron into a dark corner to ravish him.

Ways to get Ron to –

Harry was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and when he looked around Father Ignatius was hobbling slowly through the vestry doorway, leaning heavily on a stick.  Remembering Father Marius's advice, Harry quickly slipped off the pew and knelt on the kneeler beneath, assuming an attitude of respectful prayer. 

It seemed to take a very long time for the elderly priest to shuffle over to him.  Long, bony fingers eventually touched the crown of his head and a blessing was whispered in Latin.  Harry waited for Father Ignatius to give a sign for him to look up.

"Good evening, my son."  The words were a rasping whisper.

Harry looked up and felt a stab of concern.  Father Ignatius had always looked elderly and ethereal to him, but tonight he looked decidedly unwell, with paper-white skin and sunken eyes.  His expression was kindly though.

"You are comfortable, I trust?  Not suffering any undue hardship from this test?"

Harry shook his head and offered a smile.

"Good, good.  A vigil is a time for contemplation of the soul, not mortification of the flesh.  I am most gratified that you are making this gesture of faith."

Not that he had been given much choice, but Harry let this pass.

"On a night like tonight, the loss of your parents must be especially acute for you.  It is natural to wish to seek nearness to them through God …."

A tiny clunk from the main doors at the front of the church announced Father Marius's return, and Harry felt a twinge of gratitude.  Perhaps he would draw off Father Ignatius before he became too distressingly religious about the entire business.  Harry was cold and his knees were protesting; he didn't think he could maintain his polite smile for very long.  Father Ignatius continued to ramble though.

"I will admit to having some doubts previously, but when Marius informed me of your request to undertake the vigil, there could be no question of refusing such an important gesture.  I am very happy for you, Henry Potter, that you should finally have accepted our Lord's presence in your life and chosen to do this."

Harry managed to keep the smile fixed on his face, but he was surprised.  Why did Father Ignatius think he had _asked_ to take the vigil, when everyone knew that it had only been undertaken because of the Bishop's intransigence?

Father Ignatius smiled gently and gestured for him to lower his head to receive another blessing.  Still very perplexed, Harry did so, noting out of the corner of his eye that Father Marius had just passed by them. 

The blessing never came.  Instead there was a strange, soft noise and blood sprayed over Harry's face and hands, shockingly hot in the chill of the church, and rained down onto the open Bible in front of him. 

For a split second he could only stare at the droplets in disbelief.  Then Father Ignatius let out a helpless wheezing, bubbling gasp and dropped to the stone floor in front of Harry's pew, all but one spasmodically twitching foot clad in an incongruous upturned Turkish slipper hidden from his line of sight.

Harry looked up sharply, but the moment of shocked disbelief had been a moment too long and he found himself staring down the length of Father Marius's wand instead.  He froze.

Face perfectly calm and composed, in spite of his blood-soaked cassock and the hooked knife in his other hand, Father Marius flicked the wand.

 _"Petrificus totalis."_

 

xXx

 

It wasn't the betrayal that struck Harry so forcibly, although that was bad enough.  It was the manner of the betrayal.  It was done so matter-of-factly, with such a calm face, as though it had all been planned out well in advance – which, of course, it must have been – and nothing significant had occurred to mar the smooth running of that plan.

And yet something clearly _had_ gone wrong, Harry thought, for Father Ignatius was very messily dead and he was sure that this couldn't have been a part of the plan.  Father Ignatius had been ill for weeks, which had surely been factored into the calculations and perhaps even assisted a little, although apparently Father Marius had been prepared for the possibility that the elderly priest might leave the presbytery against his advice anyway.

Harry only wondered why the curate had used a knife instead of the Avada Kedavra curse, which was the usual Death Eater weapon of choice in such situations.  This question would shortly be answered.

Father Marius stepped casually over the body and around the end of the pew, where he leaned over Harry and reached inside his robes.  After some fumbling and searching, he found Harry's wand in his left sleeve and removed it, tucking it away inside his own robes, then patted him down to make sure there were no others hidden on him.

Then he went away.  This was the worst part of being put in a full body-bind for Harry; he could hear Father Marius walking briskly away but had no idea of where he was going or what he was intending to do.  But after a moment or two he heard the church doors opening again and the sound of voices.  Several newcomers entered the church.

The Church of the Holy Bones was on Black land, but while it was nominally under the estate's wards, it was outside of the main protections – it had to be, for Omnis Arcanum churches still held to the rule (long since abandoned by most Muggle churches) that a church should be open at all times to anyone who wished to enter it.  There were anti-Apparition wards but that was about it.  This was why the Order of the Phoenix had mounted a guard around it for Harry's vigil; anyone, including Death Eaters, could enter the church whenever they pleased.

Harry now thought he knew at least partially what must have happened.  Father Marius must have drugged or even poisoned the drinks he'd taken out to the guards, and poison seemed much more likely to Harry.  His mind was already shouting with horror and now there was a new note to add to it, for Remus was outside, along with Ron's brother Charlie and the others.

"Hurry," Father Marius was saying.  "It's not long until they send the second shift.  You want to catch Black at the Manor, don't you?  And I think the Tonks women will be there, both of them."

"My dear blood-traitor sister and cousin," a female voice drawled languidly, and the shouting in Harry's mind was suddenly silenced.  "And my halfblood niece.  Priceless – all three at the point of my wand."

Bellatrix Lestrange.  Something inside Harry went very cold and still.

"My dear Bella, they are no relatives of yours or Narcissa's.  Especially not the halfblood.  Remember the filth they've mired themselves in and don't besmirch yourself."

Lucius Malfoy.

"Death cleanses all …" she said in a singsong voice, and she gave the horrible, insane giggle that Harry remembered from the Ministry of Magic eighteen months before.

"Hurry, _please!_ " Father Marius said, a note of impatience entering his voice.

"Hurry yourself!" she snapped back, but Harry heard their footsteps approaching.

"Messy work," an unfamiliar male voice remarked coldly.  "If you had to off the old man, why use a knife and not your wand?  This could confuse things when the MLEs find him."

"They've been training the mudblood all summer," Father Marius retorted, and his tone held a note of anger that Harry had never heard before.  "He's faster than you think.  I wasn't sure I could pull off an Avada Kedavra curse first time, and you can be sure the brat wouldn't give me two chances."

"You couldn't Avada Kedavra him!" another strange voice jeered.

"I've never used it before!  It takes power and practice – well, have _you_ used it?"

"Enough!" Lucius said sharply, but he sounded amused.  "You'd better have the body-bind right at least."

"Do you think we'd all be standing here wasting time if I hadn't?"

"Watch your tone, priest!"

Bellatrix giggled.  "You don't _need_ your tongue after all."

Suddenly she was in Harry's line of sight, kicking Father Ignatius's body out of her way brutally.

"Old moraliser," she said with contempt.  "Who lives the longest now, old man, old leech?  Give my love to Beelzebub and roast in the flames, you foul old bag of bones!"  Then she giggled again.  "We should hang him up over the altar, like the fraud he worshipped!  Don't you think that would look appropriate?  I think his old shanks would be a fine match for the other bones here."  She fondled the tiny skull at the end of Harry's pew.

"We don't have much time!" Father Marius protested, but she wasn't listening to him.  Ever mercurial, her attention had finally lighted upon Harry.

"Little baby Potter," she crooned.  "Look at him, kneeling there with his hands and face just so ….  I wonder what he's thinking?"

"Look at it aping its betters, you mean," someone said scornfully.  "Dressed up regardless, as though standing on its hind legs and wearing velvet makes it a wizard."

They gathered around him, with Father Marius standing impatiently on the fringe of the group while they stared at Harry with varying expressions of amusement, distaste and loathing.  Beside Malfoy and Bellatrix, Harry recognised her husband Rodolphus Lestrange while another, when he came into Harry's line of vision, was Blaise's stepfather/uncle, Guiseppe Zabini.  The fourth man bore such a strong resemblance to Mr. Pettifer's eldest son that Harry felt sure it must be his second son Gervase and it was he who had made the comment about "standing on its hind legs".

"Didn't you both go to the birthday party and acknowledge it as your equal?" Rodolphus asked Zabini and Pettifer slyly.

"I went because my father was so unfortunately indisposed," Zabini said coolly, making Bellatrix giggle once more.

Harry made a mental note that Zabini had probably poisoned his father Antonio himself.

"And what was _your_ excuse, Gervase darling?" Bellatrix cooed, confirming Harry's guess.

"I didn't go," he snapped back, and his face twisted with contempt as he contemplated Harry.  "Claude went, at our old man's insistence.  He told me later that it was pathetic, truly sickening ….  I swear the old fool's growing senile, because to hear him carrying on you'd think the little mudgrubber was old Henry Potter reborn."

"I must say, I always wondered about the two of them," Lucius remarked idly.  "They were tied at the hip for decades, by all accounts.  Perhaps there was more to it than just friendship, eh?"

"What does it matter?" Bellatrix demanded.  She crouched down in front of Harry's pew until her face was level with his and rested her arms across the wooden book rest.  The sleeve of her black robe brushed against his hands, making him flinch inwardly even though his muscles couldn't move.  _"Baaaby Potter,"_ she crooned.  "So sad, isn't it?  Always destined to be betrayed by your friends on All Hallow's Eve.  I wonder … are you thinking that perhaps your friend Father Marius is under the Imperius Curse and didn't really want to betray you?"

A part of Harry _had_ been wondering that, the part of him that didn't want to believe that they could all have been so mistaken in the affable young priest.  But the hope died at the unholy mischief in her face.

"Or perhaps you're wondering _why_ he would do it?" she continued, and she glanced sideways at the curate.

Father Marius was looking angry now.  "For God's sake, we have to go _now_ , or Black and his friends will be here!"

Bellatrix's expression changed in a flash.  "I could kill you and take Potter to our master myself," she warned him.  " _You're_ not important to him!"

He didn't flinch, which was either overconfidence in Voldemort's fickle favours, Harry thought, or a complete insensibility of how dangerous Bellatrix could be when she was crossed.  "Fine.  Just get on with it before everything goes wrong and our Master kills us _all_ himself."

"Unfortunately he's right, darling," Rodolphus said, before Bellatrix could react.  "We need the Manor and we need Black out of the way.  Let's get on with it."

For a moment she looked furious enough to attack both of them, then her mood changed once more and she whisked away from Harry.

"Show us the passage," she demanded sharply, and Father Marius looked relieved.

"In the crypt, behind the plaque – I opened it earlier …."

Bellatrix turned to look at Harry one last time before she left. 

"Enjoy your meeting with our master, Baby Potter," she told him in the same crooning voice she always seemed to use when she spoke to him.  "How I wish I could be there to see it!  But you can imagine me ripping out your precious godfather's heart and eating it instead, and I can imagine the look on your face when you know he's dead."

She laughed again, and this time it wasn't the insane giggle at all but a real laugh, deep and full and somehow more horrifying for the unexpected note of sanity in it.  Then she was gone, leaving Harry to make another connection, this time to Narcissa Malfoy's visit to the church in the summer with Draco.  _Show us the passage_ , Bellatrix had said, so it would seem that the mystery of what Mrs. Malfoy had wanted in the family crypt had been solved.  And apparently Father Marius had known all about it.

Harry wondered where in the Manor the passage emerged, and whether Sirius and the others would be able to defend themselves in time.  He wondered if Remus was still alive.

And he spared a moment to be grateful that he'd told Ron not to join him at the church for the vigil after all.  At least _he_ was safe.

"Time to go," Father Marius said, in a cool, impersonal tone.  He pulled something on a string out of the neck of his robes and held it in one hand, taking Harry's left wrist in the other.  "Three – two – one – "

At the last minute Harry felt his sleeve catch on something, then the portkey effect seized hold of them both and flung them into the vortex.

 

xXx

 

Unlike Harry, Father Marius hadn't been a Slytherin during his schooldays but a Ravenclaw, and his orders from the senior Death Eaters had not been as precise as Lord Voldemort himself would undoubtedly have made them had he been personally involved in the arrangements for Harry's abduction.  On this occasion the Dark Lord chose to delegate the fine details of the matter to Lucius Malfoy, trusting that slippery but able individual to ensure that the relatively simple matter of extracting Harry from the church was carried out without any hitches. 

So if there was one mistake made, technically it was made by Lucius Malfoy who erroneously assumed that when he told Father Marius to "neutralise" the Order guards the priest would understand this businesslike phrasing and make sure they were all dead. 

But Father Marius had not been a Slytherin but a Ravenclaw, and while he could quite easily bring himself to kill in the heat of the moment, it didn't occur to him in his advance planning for the evening.  The drug he put into the Order watchers' hot drinks was the Draught of the Living Death, not a poison.

And Remus Lupin was a werewolf.

There weren't many aspects of their condition that werewolves could really call an advantage, especially given the attitude of wizards and witches towards werewolves generally and the restrictive nature of British magical law on the subject.  Their physiology, however, did mean that they were somewhat stronger than those who were curse-free, they weren't susceptible to the common cold or flu viruses, food poisoning unless the food was genuinely and deliberately contaminated with a substance that was poison to a werewolf.  They were also far more resistant to certain drugs and potions, especially sedatives, than uncursed humans thanks to a super-fast metabolism, which was one of the reasons why the rules for werewolf containment at full moons were so rigidly enforced.

Remus remembered thinking, as he sipped the hot coffee, that it was particularly bitter but simply assumed (as did all of the Order guards for that matter) that Father Marius had no talent for making the drink.  Instant coffee was unheard of in wizard Britain, being a Muggle innovation; magical folk percolated their coffee from grounds, albeit in percolators that needed little supervision.  So the drink was hot and bitter, but no one complained for it was bone-achingly cold in the churchyard and a very long shift at the end of the day for them all.  The warmth and caffeine were welcome, and the lassitude induced was fast-acting.

The potion was just strong enough that Remus abruptly found himself sitting on a headstone with no clear recollection of when or why he'd sat down.  His head was fuzzy and his limbs slow to move; it took a significant effort to get to his feet and move around.  When the fog in his mind had cleared a little, he fished out his watch to check on the time.  The waning moon was too far overhead for his liking. 

Father Marius had brought the coffee at a few minutes past eleven; it was now nearly twenty-five to twelve.  The shift change would be happening shortly.  Appalled at his lapse and unable to account for it, Remus began to make his way cautiously to the church.

Halfway there he came upon Hestia Jones's post.  To his horror she was asleep, so soundly that no amount of shaking woke her.  The shock of this drove away any lingering sleep in Remus himself; he all but ran to the next post where he found Titus Knock also insensible upon the ground.  This was no natural sleep; it could only be the result of a potion.

Remus ran for the church.  For the moment he didn't even stop to consider what had happened to the guards; it was far more important to discover if Harry was safe. 

When he got there one of the double doors was ajar.  Casting aside any normal concerns about the sanctity of the building and the need for silence during a vigil, he burst inside and looked frantically around.

"Harry!"

Holy Bones was silent, the candles flickering eerily in the skull lamps on the pews and from the bone candelabras hanging above the aisle.  The great image of Christ-in-Glory hanging above the high altar gazed down serenely … but Harry's pew was empty.

A terrible fear gripped Remus then, worse than anything he had felt since that day in April when Flourish and Blotts had been blown up with the boy still in the shop's basement.  He plunged into the church, looking from pew to pew, calling to Harry frantically, even though he knew in his heart that the teenager couldn't possibly be there or he would have replied at once.

Then, in front of the Potter family pew, Remus found the body of old Father Ignatius.  His throat had been cut from ear to ear, with enough force that the neck vertebrae could be seen through the severed oesophagus.  The poor, kindly old man's eyes were bulging out with the shock and terror he must have felt at the assault, and his blood was everywhere, pooled under him, soaking into the rugs that covered the stone floor between the nave and the altar, and sprayed across the front pew.  The unnecessary violence of this killing made Remus's stomach heave.  After a moment he reached out and very gently closed the dead priest's eyes, then he stood up and looked around.

The skull lamp at the end of Harry's pew bore a messy handprint in the blood that had splattered on it.  Remus remembered Sirius telling him once that the Aurors could somehow track people through prints like that, but he knew instinctively that even if he could wish an Auror here this very minute, they wouldn't be able to do much with this one.  Harry was gone.  He wasn't going to be anywhere that he could be tracked to so easily.

And it was at this point that Remus finally acknowledged to himself that Father Marius must have done this; that they had all trusted him and now they had been dreadfully betrayed by him.  The bitterness in this realisation was nearly enough to fell him, and somehow worse than the betrayal sixteen years ago that had killed James and Lily.  Harry had survived on that occasion by a miracle, but such miracles didn't happen twice.

Regardless of that, Remus had to do something now – alert people, tell them what had happened, get help for the other stricken Order guards and put some kind of defence in place for the assault that would surely happen the moment the only obstruction to Voldemort's plans was permanently removed.  He had to alert Dumbledore and he would have to tell Sirius ….

Remus nearly gagged.  Oh God, he would have to tell Sirius.

He was still staring blindly around, trying mentally to cudgel himself in action, when his eyes fell upon the long 'runner' rug that led down the side of the altar to the sanctuary.  It was wrinkled and bore the faint outline of a muddy footprint.  Jolted out of his stupor, Remus went to look.  There was no doubt about it; someone very careless had walked this way in a hurry. 

He followed the rug to the sanctuary gate, which had been left wide open.  Why would the sanctuary be open when the priests wouldn't need to go in there until just before the service in the morning?  Remus pulled out his wand and cautiously descended the five steps into the sanctuary, grateful that among the other scant benefits of werewolf physiology he could count on excellent night vision that wasn't spoiled by artificial lights.

The sanctuary was empty, but a small door to one side that led down into the Black Family crypt was open and a waft of cold, damp air hit Remus's face when he went to peer inside.  For a second he hesitated, for not even the most courageous man wants to enter the places where the dead sleep in the dark without knowing what may be waiting there for him, but then he pulled himself together and went down the spiral stairs. 

To his night eyes the crypt, with all its ornately carved wall plaques, stood out in sharp monochrome relief.  But where a large marble memorial stone should have been on the wall facing the stairs – as he had seen for himself in the summer, when he'd come here with Sirius to try to discover what Narcissa Malfoy had been about - there was a hole nearly two feet in diameter some four feet above the floor.

Remus swore.  They'd examined that memorial stone from every possible angle and hadn't been able to find anything about it that suggested it hid something.  But it was clear to him now that it did.  The damn thing covered the entrance to a passage, and it didn't take a genius to work out where that passage led, when it started from the Black Family crypt in a church that lay on the edge of the Black estate under Black patronage.

Someone was on their way to the Manor right at this moment.  Remus didn't suppose for a moment that Harry was with them – that was surely too much to hope for – but if he was very lucky and they didn't have too much of a head start, he just might be able to warn Sirius and the others before the Death Eaters got there.

And as he ran back up the stairs and out through the church, Remus prayed desperately that this one tiny bit of luck might still be on his side.

 

xXx

 

Portkey landings were always abrupt, but Harry discovered it could be a doubly miserable experience when one was as rigid as a board and unable to cushion one's fall by bending the knee and ankle joints.  In fact he landed on his knees – for that was the position he was still in – very heavily, and when the screaming pain subsided a little he could only marvel that he hadn't broken something, for the surface he'd landed on was a marble mosaic floor.

There was a welcoming committee of one waiting for them, and that one told Harry everything else he needed to know about where they were, for it was Draco Malfoy.  He was wearing formal black and silver robes and a satisfied sneer, and he looked very much at home.

Harry wondered briefly if Narcissa Malfoy had really been ill at all or if it had just been a story to bring her son home in time for whatever was planned for Harry.  It probably didn't matter either way.

"You actually did it," Draco said graciously to Father Marius.  "We thought they wouldn't fall for it, or they'd do something at the last minute to ruin things."

"It's surprising what people will do for someone they trust," Father Marius replied.

"All the same, you'd think they would have learned."  Draco slowly circled around Harry, smirking.  "Nice position to catch him in, too.  I like seeing Potter beg."  Harry noticed with contempt that he was nevertheless keeping his distance.  "Where did all the blood come from?"

"Is it important?"  There was a tiny edge in the priest's voice.

"Is it his?"

"No."

"Pity, although I suppose it's just as well.  Did you take his wand?"

"You don't think I'm stupid enough to leave it on him, do you?"

"Hand it over then."

Father Marius didn't move.  "The Dark Lord told me to bring it to _him_ ," he said pointedly.

Draco's smile slipped and a trace of anger crossed his face.  "Don't get cocky, priest."

"I could say the same thing to you," Father Marius retorted.  "I set this up and I brought Potter here; I have something of value to offer our master.  You, on the other hand - I can see how well they value _you_ , making you wait here like a house-elf.  If you think I'm going to let you claim any of the credit for what I've done, forget it."

"How dare you – "

"You may be his trusted lieutenant's son, but you're still only one of the rank and file," Father Marius said with a confidence that once again surprised Harry.  "I took his Mark before you and I rank more highly than you.  So if you have some purpose here, _Master Malfoy_ , why don't you get on with it, instead of wasting the Dark Lord's valuable time and patience?"

Draco turned the same painful, sweating, white colour as he had the day he and Harry had locked horns at the breakfast table over the impending disinheritance of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"You'll regret that," he said softly.

"I doubt it."

Harry began to wish they would get on with whatever was supposed to happen next – preferably his murder.  Witnessing this curiously petty argument might have been interesting had he been in a frame of mind to appreciate it, but under the current circumstances it wasn't even entertaining, only irritating.

There was a pause, then Draco said in a voice constricted with rage, "You'd better release him then, hadn't you?"

Father Marius hesitated.  "I'm not sure that's wise …."

"He has no wand," Draco snapped contemptuously, "and there are two of us.  But since you're so afraid of him …."

He pulled something out of his robes and strode over to Harry.  It was a length of plaited cord; he bound Harry's clasped, upraised hands with it tightly and almost at once Harry felt his magic deaden under its influence.

"There," Draco said curtly.  "Spellcord – with that on him he won't be able to levitate a feather, with _or_ without a wand."  He took a step back, staring down at Harry, then abruptly he spat in his face.  "Not such a big man now, are you, Potter?"  He pulled out his wand with hands that trembled ever so slightly, and flicked it at him.  _"Enervate."_

The release from the body-bind was so abrupt that Harry collapsed sideways onto the mosaic.  Every muscle seemed to be made of water, and the pain in his legs made him grind his teeth with the effort not to cry out.

And as if the spell had been holding even the smallest nerve in stasis until now, his scar began to hurt.

"Get up, Potter!"

Harry didn't think there was any way in hell that he was going to be able to stand just yet.  He stayed where he was, praying his abused muscles would stop cramping soon.

Draco's foot slammed into his side and Harry let out a shocked gasp as pain lit up from his chest to his groin.

"I said _get up!_ "

"Don't be a fool!" Father Marius snapped.  He leaned over and grabbed Harry's arm, hauling him back to his knees.

Despite the agony he was in, Harry managed to find enough strength to shake him off.

"Fuck you, don't touch me!" he wheezed.

"Get up," Father Marius said coldly. 

It seemed to take forever, but somehow Harry got his feet underneath him by dint of resting most of his weight on his bound hands and with a struggle he pushed himself upright.  When he looked at Father Marius the priest's eyes were icily impersonal.

"Can you walk?"

"What if I can't?"

"Then I let Master Malfoy here kick you a little more until you do."

"That ought to work," Harry said sarcastically and he doubled up, gasping, when the priest unexpectedly slammed a fist into his stomach.

"I don't have to put up with your clever mouth anymore," Father Marius said, breathing heavily, "so be careful what you say.  Now walk."

 

xXx

 

Malfoy Manor reminded Harry of some of the Muggle stately homes he'd seen pictures of in newspapers as a child.  It was all lofty ceilings, moulded finishes, beautiful rugs and carpets, graceful furniture and antique artworks.  It didn't look like a place real people lived in on a day to day basis; it was all for show, with that overly polished smell and trapped-in-amber appearance of places that were opened to the public for one half of the year and closed for restoration for the other half.

And according to people like Sirius and Petuarius Pettifer, it was all a sham.  Black Manor might be a well-meaning owner's nightmare of decaying grandeur and bad expansion projects, and The Rose House might have quaintly uneven floors and ceilings in places, but they were the real deal – houses that were genuinely old, having been in the ownership of one family for many generations and reflecting the varying needs of those different generations in their make-up.  By contrast, Malfoy Manor was a relatively recent building, built and furnished by someone who had come into a lot of money and power very quickly and who wanted the immediate appearance of being something he wasn't.  The house was less than a hundred years old, which was nothing in wizard terms, and its furnishings and artworks had been bought – or otherwise 'acquired' – from other First Families who retained the title but were in a tight spot financially.

Like a great deal else, the walk through the house might have interested Harry under other circumstances, but at present he only noted it in a very peripheral way.  He was in pain, a very great deal of pain, and most of it was coming from his scar.  He needed all of his resources to keep a grip on that pain and keep moving.

One thing he did notice was the way Father Marius's eyes seemed to be cataloguing everything around them.  Harry himself would have been indifferent to the riches under any circumstances, but the priest's expression held a shade of hunger in it that Harry noted and tucked away in his mind.  It might go some way to explaining why Father Marius had thrown his lot in with the Death Eaters, although Harry was acute enough to recognise that this couldn't possibly be the whole story.

Eventually they passed through the grand 'public' part of the house and down a staircase to a lower level where the surroundings were much more austere.  Harry only got a brief glance at this, for they took another set of stairs downwards again, and then another, until they emerged in the basement of the house.  This was clean but bare, dark and cold.  Draco waved his wand to open a door and yet another set of stairs were revealed that let down to a wide, bare room in the sub-basement.

And it was here that Harry nearly balked, for there was a smell to this very cold room that reminded him of something he'd smelled only a few months ago, in one of the suite of hidden rooms at Black Manor, a room Remus had grimly described as being "for storage of ... something perishable".

He was given no opportunity to resist.  Father Marius shoved him roughly through the door and Harry was still unsteady enough on his feet that he tripped and tumbled to the floor.  Before he could recover himself and get up, Draco kicked him brutally in his side again; Harry rolled to get away from him and this was apparently the whole purpose of the assault, for Draco kicked him again and again, laughing, until Harry found himself lying between two ring-bolts set into the stone floor that had short chains and metal cuffs attached.  Then the two men were on him like a flash.  The spellcord was removed from his wrists and before he could react to this he was dragged into a kneeling position again and his hands were secured inside the cuffs.  Like the spellcord they were charmed to block his magic and all Harry could do was pull on them futilely – something which he tried only once, for the cuffs had tiny spikes inside them that dug into the flesh of his wrists painfully.

This done, they backed away from him.

"We should notify his Lordship that his guest is ready for him," Draco said, still grinning maliciously at Harry.  He glanced at Father Marius.  "He'll want Potter's wand."

"And when he arrives, I'll hand it over to him," Father Marius replied coolly.

Draco's grin melted into a scowl, but he briefly left the room and Harry could hear him calling for someone.

Harry considered taking the opportunity to talk to Father Marius, but let it pass.  He doubted the priest would be interested in telling him anything useful and meaningless chitchat was pointless in this situation.  Besides, his knees and legs were once again burning with pain from being folded under him on bare stone, and his scar was so painful that Harry wondered why it wasn't bleeding as it had done on more than one occasion in the past.

Draco returned.  "I've sent a message." 

Both of them at once seemed to become tenser, more nervous.  Father Marius kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other, while Draco's eyes ran obsessively and fearfully around the room as though checking to ensure that nothing was out of place – although why he would think so Harry couldn't imagine, for there was nothing else in the room besides the three of them and the chains that held him to the floor.

Then footsteps sounded on the steps outside and the two men snapped to attention, stepping hastily back from the doorway and dropping to one knee with their heads bowed.  Three men entered the room, but only one captured Harry's attention.  Tall and upright, dressed in a long, simple black robe, his bald head gleaming in the witchlights that lit the room, he paced slowly and majestically past Father Marius and Draco as though they weren't there, until he stood barely three feet from Harry.

Lord Voldemort had arrived.

 

xXx

 

 **1 st November 1997 (early hours of the morning)**

 

The feeling in Harry's scar wasn't so much pins and needles as knives and hot pokers as he stared up at Lord Voldemort.  The pain was excruciating, sending waves of reflected sensation through the muscles of his scalp into his jawbone and teeth, down through his neck, shoulders and arms.  It came in ripples and waves, reflecting the clear excitement Harry saw in the Dark wizard's red eyes as they locked gazes.

At length Voldemort spoke and his tone was jovial and avuncular.

"Well, Harry … here we are at last.  Some months overdue perhaps, but I should have expected you to be an ungracious guest.  You're rather like your father in that respect."

Harry grimly remained silent.  He saw no point in responding to the jibe.

"Has young Master Malfoy explained to you where you are?"

On the other hand, this was too good an opening.

"No, but I guessed from the tacky furniture and fake antiques that this is his parents' place," Harry said coldly.

"Like a mudblood would know – " Draco began heatedly, but a flick of Voldemort's fingers silenced him.

"I'm not a mudblood, you moron," Harry said in as bored a voice as he could manage.  "Mudbloods are Muggleborn.  I'm a _halfblood_."

"You seem to feel there is some distinction," Voldemort remarked.  He appeared to like watching the antagonism between Harry and Draco, and Harry was quite willing to oblige him, for the angrier Draco became the more reckless he would be and that could only be a good thing.

"Wouldn't you agree?" Harry asked him, maintaining eye contact.  "One of my parents was a pureblood.  That's hardly the same as having two Muggle parents."

"That could be called a distinction, I suppose – were one desperate to disassociate oneself from one's parents."  Voldemort bent a little closer to Harry, dropping his voice.  "Are you desperate to disassociate yourself from your parents, Harry?  Does that explain why you wear the clothes of a true pureblooded wizard when you know yourself to be a lesser creature?"

"I don't know," Harry said blandly.  He dropped his voice too and leaned forward a little, mimicking the Dark Wizard.  "What's _your_ excuse?"

Voldemort's little smile vanished.  "So ready to die, Harry Potter?"

"The way I see it, I don't have much to lose," Harry retorted and he sat back on his haunches, willing himself not to show his intense physical discomfort in his face.

"No.  You don't."  Voldemort straightened up, all traces of joviality gone.  "Do you have his wand?" he demanded, without turning to look at the two men still kneeling inside the doorway.

"Yes, my Lord," Father Marius said in a humble tone.

"Show it to me."

Father Marius got to his feet and took a couple of steps forward, extracting the wand from the breast of his robes as he did so.  He knelt at Voldemort's feet and held it out, but although Voldemort stretched his hand out towards it for a moment he didn't touch it.

"Good.  I will require it presently."

Harry observed the position Father Marius was in and decided it was worth a try at needling him too.

"What's the First Commandment again?" he said as casually as he could manage.  "Oh yeah – _Thou shalt have no other gods before the Lord thy God_."

Father Marius stiffened.

"Tricky one, that," Harry mused.  "I reckon the Bible got it right about the _jealous god_ part, though." 

The look Father Marius gave him was pure, concentrated poison.  "Shut up," he hissed.  "Pathetic little _ape_ – you know nothing and care less.  Those blood traitors offered you the privileges of a person and you threw it all back in our faces.  Do you know – do you even _care_ – that the Church of the Holy Bones has stood there since the year 956?  Over a thousand years of pure wizard heritage … you aren't fit to stand in its churchyard, and they were going to let you be Confirmed there even when you'd denied the existence of God to the face of Father Ignatius."

"Yeah, let's not forget Father Ignatius," Harry snapped, losing his grip on his calm at the mention of the kindly old priest.  "What about _Thou shalt not commit murder?_   Don't you start talking about religious privileges to me, you stinking hypocrite!  You've lied to people, you've betrayed them and you murdered that old man, and what for?"

"For the purity of my Church!"

"Bollocks!" Harry retorted, incensed.  "If you really cared about your _Church,_ you wouldn't be grovelling at the feet of _him!_   Besides, I'm not blind and I'm not stupid, I saw the way you looked at all the Malfoy stuff in the house when we walked through it.  You're in this for money, aren't you?"

"How dare you – "  Father Marius lunged, only to be seized by the scruff of his neck and hauled backwards by Voldemort.

"Be careful, my friend," he said in a silky voice.  "Try to remember where you are and who the boy belongs to now."  Harry got the impression that he wasn't displeased by the quarrel that had arisen though.

"Forgive me, my Lord."

"Granted.  The brat is an irritant, is he not."

"He is, my Lord."

"Your erstwhile friend Father Marius, Harry, is one of a number of his brethren who have seen the wisdom of joining my cause," Voldemort said in the same silky tone.  "He feels certain natural concerns about the admittance of the unworthy to the hallowed places only the pureblooded and righteous have occupied for centuries."

"'Righteous' people like the Lestranges and the Malfoys, I suppose," Harry said scornfully.  "And he wonders why I don't want to be Confirmed into his precious bloody Church, when those are the only kind of people he thinks are worth bothering with!"

Voldemort smiled.  "He is not without personal ambition as well, of course."

"Of course!  And is the Bishop of Avebury in on this too?" Harry demanded.

This was met with snorts all round. 

"His Grace the Bishop might best be described as … unambitious," Voldemort replied.

Harry looked contemptuously at Father Marius.  "So is he dead as well, or what?  Seeing as how he doesn't see things your way any more than Father Ignatius did?"

"We will deal with his Grace in due course," Voldemort said coolly, "along with a number of other short-sighted persons – " his lips twitched sarcastically, "if you'll pardon the pun, Harry."

"I've been called worse."

"Of that I have no doubt."  Voldemort gave a false little sigh.  "Well, this is all very diverting, but I can't stand around chatting all evening!  No doubt, you will be wondering what I have planned for you now that you're here."

"I can hardly wait to hear," Harry said dryly.

Voldemort raised a brow.  "Come, come, Harry!  No one likes a bad loser.  Besides, you should be gratified.  I've prepared a little ceremony for you, one that hasn't been used in many centuries."  He smiled unpleasantly.  "How farsighted of you to dress for the occasion!"

"You're going to try to siphon off my magic," Harry said, losing patience once more.  "I already know – old news."

Both of Voldemort's brows went up at this.  "You would seem to have been studying, then."

"You'd be surprised at the things I've been doing," Harry said curtly.

"Yes … we are aware of your poorly hidden sessions with Dumbledore.  You lack a certain subtlety, dear boy – Draco had few problems in keeping you under observation."

"He was actually inside Dumbledore's office?" Harry asked, feigning admiration.  "Wow, he's _good_."

"I didn't have to be inside Dumbledore's office to know what you were doing there, Potter!" Draco spat.

"Good.  You can tell us all what Dumbledore was teaching me, then," Harry shot back.

Voldemort's chuckle silenced any retort Draco might have made. 

"Very good!" he applauded.  "But do you know, Harry, it really doesn't matter what you were doing there.  No one here cares, because in a very short while you won't be alive to make use of whatever wisdom our revered headmaster saw fit to impart to you."

He would have said more, but at that moment there was the sound of running footsteps and a black-robed but unmasked Death Eater rushed into the cell and fell to his knees, bowing his head and all but cowering.

"Master …."

"Well?" Voldemort snapped.  "What do you want?"

"My Lord, forgive me – the traitor has escaped – "

 _"What?"_

"Just now – we went to retrieve him from the pit as ordered and he was gone."

"Who was guarding him?"

"Parkinson, my Lord.  We found him stunned."

Fury contorted Voldemort's face and the force of his rage made Harry flinch; his scar felt as though it was on fire and he could feel something thick and warm beginning to trickle down his face from it.

"I do hope you left him in that condition," Voldemort said finally, very softly.  "I should so hate the impact to be wasted when I awaken him.  Father Marius!"

"My Lord?"

"Take Harry's wand to the ceremony room and put it in the place prepared for it."

"Yes, my Lord."  Father Marius scrambled to his feet and hurried to the door.

"Master Malfoy."

Draco looked up.  "My Lord?"

"I know I can trust you to stand guard over Potter," Voldemort told him.  There was an edge in his voice that Harry didn't understand but which made Draco flinch.  "He will be unmarked, do you understand?  And you will refrain from speaking to him.  I shall return shortly.  The rest of you come with me."  He glanced at Harry.  "Until the ceremony, Harry …."

He left, the two other Death Eaters who had stood guard behind him following silently and accompanied by the messenger, who craned his neck to stare at Harry before he passed out of the room. 

Then there was a long silence as their footsteps faded into the distance.

 _"At last,"_ a voice said out of nowhere, making Harry and Draco both jump.

And before Harry's incredulous eyes the air behind Draco seemed to split and open up, to reveal a wild-eyed and grim Ron Weasley.  He grabbed Draco around the neck with one arm before the blond youth could react, and jabbed him with his wand.

"I'd be a bit careful how I moved if I were you, Malfoy," he said viciously.  "I'd hate you to get damaged before you get us out of here."

 

xXx

 

"I followed you to the church," Ron said in a tired voice.  His eyes were bleak from the multiple shocks of the past few hours.

They were sitting in the study at The Rose House, where Ron had Apparated them both as soon as they were outside the Malfoy Manor wards.  The house-elves were fluttering around them, plying them with tea and strengthening potions, and Maffy was grimly tearing an old sheet into strips to make bandages for Harry's injuries.  Drooby, deeply agitated by the hurried account Ron gave him of what had happened, had gone off somewhere to "report"; there had been no opportunity to stop him even had Harry been in a fit state or position to give any of the elves orders.

"How did you know when I left school?" Harry asked him.

"Goldstein came up to me and Hermione at dinner and told us you'd been taken to the Infirmary," Ron explained.  "I went up there straight after dinner and there was no one around.  It was pretty obvious what was happening, so I went and got the cloak - "

"But you weren't supposed to follow me till tomorrow!" Harry pointed out.

Ron roused enough to give him an old-fashioned look.  "Come off it, mate!  You gave me that cloak - did you really think I was going to hang around till the morning and turn up at church with everyone else?  Besides ... I had a bad feeling about it all."

"You and everyone else."

"Right.  So I grabbed the cloak and legged it down to Hogsmeade.  I was going to Floo to the Manor, like we agreed, but then I thought that if I turned up there too early they'd just shove me back in the Floo, so in the end I went to The Old Stoatshead Inn - it's a wizard pub not far from home.  And from there I Apparated to Holy Bones."  Ron took a quick gulp from his mug and continued, "I got there a bit before you and Remus did and hung around in the churchyard, watching everyone turn up.  When Father Marius took you inside I followed, and I spent most of the evening sitting a couple of pews behind you."

"So you saw everything that happened?" Harry asked.

Ron swallowed hard and his hands, which had briefly stopped shaking under the influence of Maffy's potion, started to tremble again with shock.  "Yeah," he said unsteadily.  "He - he cut Father Ignatius's throat.  Harry, there was nothing I could do!  By the time I realised what he was going to do it was too late, and then he had his wand on you - "

"It's not your fault!" Harry said quickly.  "I couldn't do anything either."

"I froze," Ron said miserably.  "I wanted to do _something_ , but I couldn't move.  I - I couldn't believe Father Marius was a traitor."

"It's probably a good thing you froze," Harry said.  "He fooled all of us and if he could kill Father Ignatius like that, then I reckon he wouldn't have hesitated with you either."

"But if I'd been a bit quicker ....  Well, I was thinking I could maybe Apparate us both out of there, but it all happened too quick and there was no chance.  All I could do was grab hold of you when he took you and hope the portkey took me too."

"You saved my life," Harry said quietly, and his eyes caught and held Ron's for a long moment.  "If I'd known you were planning to come after me like that, I would have been scared out of my mind.  But - but I'm glad you did."

"You would have done the same," Ron mumbled, ducking his head.

"That's not the point," Harry told him.

Ron nodded jerkily and took a couple of quick sips from his mug. 

"What do we do now?" he asked after a long pause.

"I don't know," Harry admitted.  "I wish I knew what's happening - I don't know if Sirius and the others are okay, or if Remus is dead or alive ...."

"Charlie was at the church too," Ron said.  He swallowed hard.  "Do you reckon Father Marius poisoned them?"

Harry still thought it highly likely, but he dared not say that to Ron.  They were almost certainly going to have to go somewhere else shortly, and maybe even fight - Ron didn't need to be thrown off track by thinking his brother might be dead.

"I don't know," he said again.  "It might just have been a sleeping potion.  Let's hope so."

"So what do you want to do?"

Harry hesitated.  "I'm not sure ....  I'm wondering who the traitor is who escaped."

"Snape?" Ron suggested.

"That's what I thought.  I don't think he knew anything about what was planned for me tonight, and that means they knew he was a spy for Dumbledore - "  He stopped, seized by a horrifying realisation.  "Oh shit ... I gave him away."

"What?  How?"

"That day I met Father Marius in Hogsmeade - he was asking about my lessons and I told him about Snape training me.  He didn't even know Snape was a member of the Order until I told him!"

"Harry, you couldn't have known," Ron said urgently.  "We all trusted him - Dumbledore trusted him!  You knew he was a member of the Order, why _wouldn't_ you tell him something like that?"

"I knew some people were kept secret!" Harry retorted.  "I knew Dumbledore didn't tell everyone in the Order about Snape because he was our spy!"

"Harry, it's not your fault!"

"Oh shit."  Now it was Harry's turn to shake.  "If he dies - "

"He may have escaped!" Ron said forcefully, standing up and leaning over the little table between them to grab Harry's hands.  "If it was him at the Malfoy place, then he escaped.  Harry, he survived the last war and changed sides, didn't he?  He's a tough old git and I reckon he can look out for himself.  We've got to concentrate on us, okay?  There's nothing we can do about him here."

"No, no - you're right, but - "

Harry hissed and gingerly touched his scar.  It had briefly stopped bleeding while they were making their way out of Malfoy Manor, but it had been throbbing painfully all along.  Now, suddenly, it was like having acid thrown in his face.  The pain was nearly made him gag and when he looked at his fingertips they were dabbed with blood.  Maffy made a distressed sound and folded up a bit of linen to press to it, but Harry barely noticed her - his eyes were fixed on Ron's, which were huge with alarm.

"He knows I've escaped," Harry whispered, feeling the insane rage that fuelled the pain.

"Shit!  Will he come here?"

Harry shook his head.  "I don't think so - why would he think I would come here?  He probably thinks I've gone to the Manor or Dumbledore.  I wish I knew which!"

Then Drooby came hurrying back into the room, almost dancing with agitation. 

"Drooby is not finding Miss MacDuff, young Master, and when I am trying to go to Cedar Lodge I am finding all the wards closed, sir - "

Harry stared at him.  "Cedar Lodge?  Mr. Pettifer's house?"

"Yes, young Master sir, yes!  Drooby is trying to tell Mr. Pettifer what has happened, but I am not finding anyone!"

"Did you try Black Manor?" Ron asked him.

Drooby wrung his hands.  "Drooby is thinking it is better not to try if there is Death Eaters there, sir.  Drooby is not wishing to lead them to the young Master, so I am asking the old Masters what to do - "

"What do you mean?" Harry demanded, astonished.

Drooby indicated a portrait frame hanging on the wall behind Harry.  "The old Masters, young Master."

Harry turned to look and found himself staring at a whole crowd of his ancestors who had all pushed themselves into a large gilded portrait frame there to observe what was going on.  His grandfather, Henry Potter, was staring back at him intensely from the front and as Harry watched the crowd swayed and parted to admit his father James who, still dressed in his wedding robes, looked as though he'd been running.

Then, to Harry's disbelief, for the first time ever he spoke.

"Great-Grandmama still has a portrait at the Manor.  She's gone to see if she can find out what's happening."

"There were five of them," Harry found himself saying, in spite of his shock.  "The Lestranges, Lucius Malfoy, Zabini and Mr. Pettifer's son."  He was incredulous that one of the pictures had spoken to him – and that they were actively trying to help him.  He'd known the portraits in Dumbledore's office helped the headmaster, but hadn't thought other pictures could do so.  Especially as these particular pictures had never really interacted with him before.

"Advance party," James replied.  His eyes, like Henry Potter's, were fixed on Harry's face.  "They must want to take the Manor.  It's an old Goblin tactic, one Voldemort adapted – go in with a small group, kill as many as you can, and take down the wards to let the others in.  Wards are stronger from the outside but it's relatively easy to damage them if you're inside, especially if you're a family member – and Bellatrix is a Black."

"Then we need to go there and help Sirius – "

"No!  Wait for Auriga to come back …."

Someone else was pushing into the picture now – Harry's mother.  She too was out of breath.

"Auriga says there's a tremendous fight going on at the Manor," she said, clinging to James's arm and taking a gulping breath.  "She thinks the Order people are holding their own, though.  They were warned – Severus Snape is there, and Remus – "

"Remus is alive?"  Harry's heart leapt.

"Yes, but Severus is badly injured," Lily replied.

Rob grabbed Harry's arm.  "If Snape's at the Manor, Dumbledore might not know what's going on."

"Then we have to go to Hogwarts," Harry said, and some of his relief at knowing Remus had survived ebbed away, to be replaced by a cold sensation in his stomach.

"We could Floo to Hogsmeade from here, couldn't we?"

"Little Master, no!"  Maffy was horrified at the turn the conversation was taking.  "You is staying here and letting us protect you!"

"Maffy, I have to go," Harry told her.  He tried to make his voice gentle in the face of her distress.  "People are going to die, especially if I don't warn Professor Dumbledore.  Voldemort's in a rage now, he's lost two prisoners – he's lost _me_.  He could do anything.  Someone has to call the Aurors and it can't be me because they won't listen to me – "

"Maffy is going to the Aurors for you, little Master, or to Professor Dumbledore – "

"That's not a bad idea," Ron said.  "If the house-elves at the castle are told, they'll make sure Dumbledore knows what's going on."

Harry straightened up.  "All right.  And you could go to The Burrow from here and tell your dad what's happened," he said.  "He could go to the Ministry."

Ron's face was pale but resolute.  "That's – that's if The Burrow hasn't been attacked too," he pointed out.  "And what about you?  Will you stay here?"

Harry took a slow breath.  "I still have to go to Hogsmeade," he said simply, and gritted his teeth against the storm of protest from the house-elves.

Ron didn't join in.  From the look on his face, Harry had said exactly what he was expecting to hear.

"Mate," he said quietly, "what do you think you're going to do?"

"I'm going to try to intercept Voldemort," Harry replied.  He made a helpless gesture.  "What did you think?"

"You think you can stop him?" Ron demanded.  "Do you think you can beat him now?  Harry – "

"Yes," Harry interrupted him, raising his voice slightly.  "I think I can."

Ron lost it. 

"He had you in chains at Malfoy Manor!" he shouted.  "You were a sitting target, getting the shit kicked out of you by Draco-fucking-Malfoy, and there wasn't a thing you could do about it!  What makes you think you can take on Voldemort an hour later and win?"

"All I have to do is touch him," Harry said forcefully.  "That's all!  I couldn't touch him before, but if I can get close enough then I might just be able to stop him."

" _Touch_ him?"  Ron stared at him, bewildered.

"Touch him," Harry repeated with a nod.  "Ron, we don't have time for me to explain it or argue with you!  If I'm going, I have to go _now_."

Ron's shoulders slumped.  For a moment he didn't seem to know what to say, then he rubbed his face with both hands.

"Fine," he said, and his voice was quiet again.  "Fine.  But I'm going with you."

"No!  You have to go to the Burrow – "

"There's nothing I can do at The Burrow that Mum and Dad and the twins can't do a hundred times better!" Ron snapped.  "But if I come with you to Hogsmeade, I can watch your back against You Know Who's mates until you get a chance to – to _touch_ him."

"Ron …."  Harry shook his head.  "No.  I don't want you getting mixed up in this – "

"I'm already mixed up in it, you berk!  I helped you escape - what, you don't seriously think they're going to believe Malfoy suffered a change of heart and got you out of there, do you?  If he did that, why would he conveniently shut himself in a cupboard and stun himself and then spin 'em a story about Ron Weasley in an Invisibility Cloak?"

"They might not have found him," Harry began weakly.

"We had to leave the kitchen door unlocked!  We nicked his wand and left a fucking great hole in the wards!  Of _course_ they'll have found him!"  For a moment Harry thought Ron might actually dance on the spot with aggravation, but then he seemed to get a grip on himself again and with an effort he calmed down once more.  "No more arguments," he said flatly.  "I'm coming with you."

Harry looked at the wand he'd taken from Draco.  His own was still somewhere at Malfoy Manor.

"Ash and unicorn tail hair, fourteen inches," he said in mild disgust.  "Figures he'd have a nancy-boy wand the length of his arm.  Oh well, I'll just have to manage."

"Might be better," Ron observed more mildly.  "It's not tied to You Know Who's wand.  There's obviously something funny about yours or he wouldn't have made such a big deal about it being taken to his 'ceremony room'."

"Dumbledore seemed to think there was something different about my wand that might explain why I could recall spells," Harry said.  "It doesn't matter though.  I don't think I'm going to be pulling any hexes this time."

"Agreed," Ron said.  "We hit them with everything we've got before they can hit us."  He seemed to brace himself.  "I reckon we've learned a few tricks lately that they won't be expecting from us."

"Yeah."

They looked at each other for a long moment.

"Better get a move on, then," Harry said.  He turned to the house-elves.  "Drooby, can you send someone to Hogwarts, please?  They need to be very careful - we don't know what the situation is there, but Professor Dumbledore or someone else in charge needs to be told what has happened.  Tell him what Ron and I are planning to do too."

Maffy let out a little moan, but Drooby bowed.  "It shall be done, young Master."

"I want you to lock the wards here tightly after we leave," Harry continued.  "I don't know if they'll think to come here at all."  He hesitated, then said reluctantly, "If - if they win, then they probably will.  I don't know how to advise you if that happens.  Do whatever you must to save yourselves, do you understand?"

His eyes went to the crowded portrait frame and once again were caught by his father and mother's stricken gazes, by the intensity of Henry Potter's stare.  He was reminded of the scenes he had once seen in the Mirror of Erised of all his relatives, magical and Muggle, huddled together and gazing back at him.

His grandfather finally chose to speak.

"A house is mere bricks and mortar, Harry," he said quietly.  "It can be built and destroyed by the flick of a wand, and it means _nothing_.  But you cannot be replaced, and what we are rests in you.  Take the greatest care."

That shouldn't mean anything either, Harry told himself almost angrily as he and Ron headed for the Floo.  He was the last of his family and it wasn't as though he had any intention of continuing the name anyway, so what did it matter?  A painting was just pigments on canvas in a wooden frame; the real people were long dead and gone.

But he still found his head turning towards the portrait for one final look before he stepped into the fireplace.

 _"The Hog's Head Inn!"_

 

xXx

 

The Hog's Head appeared to be empty when the two of them stepped out of the filthy fireplace; it was still and silent and there was no sign of the surly barman who normally lurked behind the counter.

This did not surprise Harry.  It was the middle of the night, and while wizard pubs didn't seem to have the same licensing and opening hours as Muggle bars, he would have been surprised to find more than a couple of desperate old soaks collapsed under the furniture.  Besides, the Hog's Head was mostly frequented by criminals and people who got looked sideways at by the good people of Hogsmeade; the kind of person who would be far too smart to be caught out by a Death Eater raid.  By the same token, it was unlikely that any Death Eater assault in Hogsmeade would bother with the little tavern.  The kind of people they were interested in were more likely to be patrons of The Three Broomsticks.

Nevertheless the two of them proceeded cautiously, checking under the taproom tables and behind the bar.  There was no one about and the pub had an air of being genuinely empty, rather than just closed for the night.

"Clear," Harry whispered finally.

"Skedaddled, you mean," Ron grumbled.  "How many of them knew what was coming, do you reckon?"

"Does it matter?  Aberforth's not here, either - I wonder if he went up to Hogwarts when he got wind of what was happening?"

"Aberforth?"

"The landlord," Harry replied.  "He's Dumbledore's brother."

"How do you know things like that?" Ron demanded in a whisper as they cautiously crossed the taproom to the front doors.

Harry gave him a smile that was barely visible in the gloom.  "I've got all sorts of sources, didn't you know?  Come on ...."

They eased the doors open with a charm and peered out, then slipped quietly out and began to make their way up the street, keeping to the shadows just in case. 

The Hog's Head was on the outskirts of Hogsmeade, but it was clear that something was going on in the village proper.  There was too much light, for one thing, and they could hear distant sounds of spells and shouts.  Harry and Ron clung to the walls of the buildings as they got nearer, until finally they were tucked at the side of a little draper's shop that was at the bottom of the main street. 

Harry took a very cautious look around the corner of the building, then shrank back.  The leaden feeling was back in his stomach and his scar was slowly growing more and more painful.

"I don't think we'll be going to Hogwarts," he said very quietly to Ron.

Ron's face was pale and his eyes wide in the deep shadows.  "Is he here?"

Harry just looked at him.

The redhead licked his lips.  "Okay," he said, and his voice was a little higher than usual.  "What's the plan?"

"I reckon there's easily seven or eight Death Eaters with him - there might be more, but that's all I could see.  He's going to want to deal with me himself.  That means you're going to have to hold off the others."  Silence.  "Or you could double back and take the Floo to The Burrow."

"No!"

"Or you could sneak around the houses and try to get up to the school to get help."

"Harry," Ron said fiercely, "I am _not_ leaving you here on your own with them!"

"Ron," Harry said softly, "you can't hold off more than half a dozen Death Eaters on your own and survive.  We never imagined or trained for that."

"What about the cloak?  If I'm wearing that - "

"Have you got it with you?" Harry asked, and he felt a surge of wild and inappropriate amusement when Ron cursed.  He reached out to grab his friend's arm, for the first time knowing exactly what he wanted to say and - astonishingly – feeling free and comfortable in saying it.  "I love you."

Ron stared at him, shocked for a moment and then smiling incredulously.  "Harry?"

"I love you, you berk," Harry told him, smiling back.  "You're not going to go back, are you?"

"There isn't a single bloody thing you can do to make me, mate," Ron told him earnestly.  "I love you too.  And I'm not leaving you - ever."

Harry swallowed and grabbed him.  The kiss was hard, sloppy and fast, leaving them both breathless.  Then he released Ron, but kept one hand on his arm.

"We go in fast," he instructed him, "and we hit as many of them as hard as we can."

"Unforgivables?" Ron asked.

"I've only ever tried to use one once and it didn't work too good.  You?"

"Never."

"Then don't try.  Use something nasty - Sectumsempra does a bit of damage.  Stun them, body-bind them, Confund them - whatever.  Just hit as many as you can before they realise what's happening."

"And Voldemort?"

"The aim is to get to him," Harry said and he swallowed again, his mouth drying at the thought.  "I have to get close enough to touch him, but he's not going to be taken by surprise like the others.  When he engages me, you put your back to mine, okay?  Whatever you do, don't let any of them draw you off or you're finished - you stick with me and you fight as dirty as you can.  And whatever you do, Ron, ignore anything _he_ says or does."

"Okay."

And still they paused, looking at each other.  Harry knew in that moment that they were both going to die, and he knew that Ron knew it too. 

It didn't matter.  They were together.  All that mattered now was taking Voldemort with them.

Harry's grip on Ron's arm tightened. 

 _"Go!"_

 

xXx

 

Sirius sat back on his heels and surveyed the damage done to the main entrance hall of the Manor.  Under the artificial lighting of several contained _lumos_ charms it looked ghastly; but closer inspection revealed that it wasn't as bad as he'd first thought.  The wreckage was nearly all from the scaffolding that had been holding up the remains of the staircase, and since the stairs had already been removed and weren't to be replaced until the New Year, it wasn't a disaster.

The blood and bodies were another matter.  Trying to ignore the scorched patch on the mosaic floor that was all that remained of Snape's left forearm, Sirius got shakily to his feet and walked across to where Andromeda and Dilys Haydock were ministering to Ted Tonks.  There was a terrifyingly large gash in his side through which Sirius tried to tell himself he couldn't see the lung.  Dilys had had the presence of mind to slap a stasis spell on him as soon as the extent of the injury became clear; it would hold for now, but would be terribly dangerous if they had to wait long for assistance.

"How is he?" he asked his cousin.

"He _might_ be all right if the healers get here straight away," she said curtly.

In the background, Kingsley was barking orders into a two-way mirror:

" ... and I don't give a shit what time of night it is, Locksley - you wake up Scrimgeour and you tell him we have a Code X situation in progress - yes, that's right, Code _X_ \- and then you order out every squad we have and send them to the following locations _immediately_ , do you hear me? … What part of _Code X_ do you not understand?  You do _know_ what Code X means, I assume?  Then _DO IT!_ "

Nymphadora was having a similar conversation in her mirror:

" ... yes, we need at least two healers here as fast as you can send them - faster if possible - we have two men down, six other people with lesser injuries, and at least three dead ... _yes_ , we've notified the fucking MLEs!  Didn't I just tell you I'm an Auror?  Just get those bloody healers here _now_ , for the love of Merlin, before more people die - "

Sirius turned to Kingsley, who was pocketing his mirror as he returned to the main group.  The senior Auror's eyes were blazing.

"Bloody desk-flying idiots!" he said angrily.  "Was I _sure_ we were being attacked?  Had I made _sure_ that the bodies were really dead?  Was I aware of how late it was, because the Minister and Chief Auror wouldn't like being woken up for nothing ...."

"If Bellatrix being dead on my floor is nothing, then I don't want to know what they call an emergency," Sirius said thinly.  "Kingsley, at least one of us needs to go to Hogwarts.  Dumbledore may still be in the dark about what's going on."

"You go," Kingsley said at once.  "Take Lupin with you - Tonks and I can manage Snape and it's better if we handle our colleagues when they arrive.  In fact, it's better if you and Lupin are out of the way for the time being - given the mentality of the Ministry right now, you could both end up in a cell for the next twenty-four hours until we get it all sorted out, and we could all do without that."

"Of course.  Remus?"

"Coming."  Remus made sure that Snape's unconscious form was covered by his tattered cloak, and got to his feet.  Like Sirius, he was liberally splattered with drying blood.  "We'll have to take the Floo to Hogsmeade."

"We'd better grab a couple of brooms then."

"Are you all right?" Remus asked as they hurried through the house to get to the Floo in their own quarters.

"No," Sirius said shortly.

"Padfoot - "

"For the love of God, Moony, I don't want to discuss what I just had to do to Snape, okay?"

"That wasn't what I was asking about," Remus said quietly.

"No, I'm not all right.  I don't want to think about what's happening to Harry or what'll happen to the rest of us when they're done with him."

"It's not over yet, Pads – "

"It's never bloody well over," Sirius said bitterly.

 

xXx

 

The Three Broomsticks was a mess when the two of them stepped out of the Floo.  The comfortable little family pub looked as though it had been hit by some disaster; furniture was overturned and blasted apart, fittings were hanging off the walls and ceilings, and scorch marks marred the floor.  It was the middle of the night and the room was lit only by lights in the street filtering through the broken windows, but that was enough to see the wreckage of Hallowe'en decorations from the party that had probably been held in the pub some hours before.

Broken glass crunched under Sirius's feet as he took a couple of wary steps into the taproom.  He and Remus took a long moment to assess the damage, then their eyes met through the gloom.

"Something tells me that Dumbledore already knows what's happening," Sirius murmured.

"If he doesn't, it's probably too late to tell him," Remus replied grimly.  "I wonder what happened to Rosmerta?"

"Let's hope she bolted at the first sign of trouble.  Come on."

Sirius eased the front door of the pub open and when he couldn't hear or see anything, he slipped through it.

Only Remus' sharp reflexes saved his life.

Sirius registered the sudden brilliant green flash hurtling towards him just as his partner slammed into him, throwing him face-first to the ground.  The killing curse scorched over their heads with a sound like an oncoming tornado -

And there was a moment of hellish silence, in which Sirius heard his own harsh breathing, Remus's sharp indrawn breath - _thank God he's alive it didn't hit him_ \- and the racing thump of both their hearts.  Then the sigh of wind dying down, accompanied by the sharp tang of scorched stone and brick and an odd sensation of all the air around them being briefly sucked away.  Sirius felt his ears pop as the air pressure changed.

Silence.

He raised his head very cautiously.

What he saw would remain with him, with the sharp clarity of a fresh photograph, until the end of his days.

The street was littered with debris from damaged buildings and bodies clad in the signature black cloaks and masks of Death Eaters; whether they were dead or just unconscious Sirius couldn't tell and didn't care.  In the middle of the worst wreckage was a large ring of something that looked like soot or dark ash, and in the centre of that stood Harry.

There was a crumpled body at his feet - red hair made the identity fairly obvious.  Harry himself was standing, right arm semi-extended and fist clenched as though he was holding something very tightly in it.  His eyes were wide open and for a moment he seemed to stare into nothing.  Then his face relaxed into an expression of simple relief - and he fell like a stone.

Sirius didn't realise that he'd got to his feet until he found himself running down the street to where the two boys lay.

 _"HARRY!"_

 


	7. Chapter 7

**1 st November 1997 **

 

Ron awoke with a shocking completeness.  For a moment he lay very still, listening, then he realised where he was and relaxed.

The school infirmary.  Which meant he must be alive.

Cautiously he tested himself, wriggling fingers and toes and clenching and unclenching muscles to see if he could still feel everything.  He could feel the slightly nubby softness of hospital pyjamas and the stiffness of the bed linens.  His body ached horribly all over, especially his head, which was possibly the most convincing evidence of all.  He was definitely alive and still in one piece.

Then he remembered and sat up sharply with a cry.

"Ron!"

A book went hurtling to the floor and Ron was seized in a fierce hug by his brother Bill.

"Thank Merlin, you're all right, mate ...."

Ron tried to say something and found that his mouth was too dry to speak; after a moment Bill released him and seeing the problem quickly produced a cup of water.  Ron only took enough to make it possible to speak, though.

"Where am I?" he asked, staring around at the bland white walls of the little room, bewildered.  His voice rasped a little for his throat was sore.  "I thought I was at school?"

"You are, mate, it's okay."  Bill sat on the side of the bed and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.  "This is one of the isolation rooms."

"Why - ?"

"Dumbledore thought it might be better if you're not on the main ward for now."

Ron didn't understand this at all, but he didn't particularly care for the time being.  There was a far more important question to be answered.

"What about Harry?"

Bill hesitated and before he could make his mind up to speak Madam Pomfrey swept into the room, alerted by the alarm charm above Ron's bed.  She looked unusually tired and careworn, but she smiled at him and pulled out her wand.

"Awake at last, Mr. Weasley?  Excellent.  Let's have a look at you  - "

"What about Harry?" Ron interrupted, looking from her to Bill and back.  "Where is he?"

"Mr. Weasley, please lie back for a moment - "

"Mate, you need to stay calm," Bill told him.  "He's in the main ward, okay?"

Ron subsided slightly.  _In the main ward_.  Harry wouldn't be in the infirmary at all if he wasn't alive.

"Is he okay?"

"He hasn't woken up," Bill said, very reluctantly.

"But he'll be okay?"

"Ron, I'm not a healer - I can't answer that."

Ron turned impatiently to Madam Pomfrey.  "Is he going to be okay?"

Her eyes met his and the sadness in them made his stomach lurch. 

"I don't know, Mr. Weasley," she said quietly.  "Now, please lie still and let me examine you.  You were lucky to survive yourself, you know."

"I want to see him."

"Later, perhaps," she said, starting to run her wand over him.

"But - "

 _"Ron,"_ Bill said forcefully, and Ron stared at him.  His brother's face was grim.  "Wait until you've seen Dumbledore, okay?"

"Why?" Ron demanded.  "What aren't you telling me?  Why am I stuck in here when Harry's outside?"

"Ron – "

"Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley." 

Professor Dumbledore stood in the doorway.  When he saw that he had their attention, he stepped inside the room and closed the door behind him.  Then he turned to Ron.

"I'm glad to see you awake at last.  "How are you feeling?"

"Everything aches, sir," Ron said briefly, uninterested in his own condition.  "Why am I here?"

"You are here because all but a very few select persons believe you to have contracted an infectious stomach complaint," Dumbledore replied calmly, coming to stand by the side of the bed.  "For the time being, it is safer that everyone believes this to be the case, although the deliberate prevarication involved is regrettable, of course."

Ron wasn't sure that this made any sense.  "What about Harry?"

"Harry is extremely ill," Dumbledore said.  "There is no secret as to how he came to be in his current state.  You, on the other hand, are another matter."

Ron was becoming more and more upset as the moments passed.  "I don't understand, Professor!"

"I know," Dumbledore said, and his voice was very gentle.  "Let me see if I may enlighten you a little, and then perhaps a little later you will feel able to return the favour.  But first I should tell you that your mother and father have been told that you have awakened and will be here very soon.  Will you permit me to draw up a chair?  It has been a very long weekend so far and shows no sign of coming to an end yet."

"What day is it?" Ron suddenly thought to ask Bill, as the Headmaster settled himself into an upright infirmary chair.

"It's Sunday afternoon, mate," Bill replied.  "You woke up for a few minutes after you got here early yesterday morning, and since then you've slept right through."

"You drained your magic to a dangerously low level," Dumbledore said.  "But we will talk about that in a while.  Allow me to explain to you what happened in Hogsmeade.  You and Harry were found by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin perhaps a dozen yards from The Three Broomsticks.   You were surrounded by a great deal of wreckage and numerous dead bodies, and the sounding area showed signs of a violent magical battle having taken place.  When Sirius and Remus had established that you were both alive, though unconscious, they rigged a litter between two broomsticks and flew you here.  A short while afterwards a team of Aurors and Hit-Wizards arrived from the Ministry and began to process the area as a crime scene.  The dead proved to be a number of individuals already under suspicion as potential Death Eaters and several persons from the civilian populace of Hogsmeade whom we believe to have been those Death Eaters' victims.  There was also a wide variety of curse residues, a broad circular ring of an oily ash that Remus tells me you and Harry were found in the middle of, and a large band of scorching on every building within a twenty yard radius at roughly chest height. This scorch mark is saturated with a powerful trace of the Avada Kedavra curse, although how that may be possible we cannot yet say."




"Why have I been hidden in here, then?" Ron asked.

"You have been hidden because until you were discovered with Harry, no one knew that you were with him.  Evidence recovered from The Rose House has told us that you may have been with him from the moment he entered the Church of the Holy Bones on Friday evening.  Is that so?"

"Yes."  Ron swallowed.  "I – He leant me his Invisibility Cloak.  I was supposed to use it to go to the Confirmation service on Saturday but then I decided to try and follow him to the vigil, because I was worried about him and I knew he was worrying about it too.  I sat with him all evening, under the cloak.  He didn't know I was there."

"I see."  Dumbledore considered this for a moment.  "And you were with him when he was abducted?"

Ron nodded.  "When Father Marius portkeyed him out of there, I managed to grab hold of Harry's sleeve."

Bill took a deep breath.  "Christ, Ron …."

Ron stared at him.  "What else could I do?  I couldn't let Father Marius just _take_ him."

"I know, but – "

"We are getting ahead of ourselves," Dumbledore interjected gently.  "Ronald, may we take it as read that you followed to wherever Harry was taken and rescued him when a suitable opportunity presented itself?"

"Yes, sir."

"And then the two of you went to The Rose House, where you considered your options before deciding to going on to Hogsmeade?"

"Yes …."

"And there you found Lord Voldemort and a number of his followers, whereupon you were engaged in a battle of spells."

"Sort of," Ron said hesitantly.  "It was a bit more complicated than that but … yes, I suppose that's mostly right."

The Headmaster nodded.  "A very truncated description, but close enough for our purposes.  I must ask one more very important question before I tell you more, though, and I need a very clear answer.  Did Harry succeed in destroying Lord Voldemort?"

Silence.  Ron's hands twisted into his sheets for a moment, then he looked up at Dumbledore.

"Yes, Professor.  I think so."

"You're not sure?" Bill asked him tensely.

Ron began to shake.  "I'm not sure exactly what he did – Harry, I mean.  He – he told me that he had to touch Y-you Know Who, but I don't know what he meant by that.  But I know he _did_ touch him and something – something weird – happened.  It was like he started to melt or something, and – and there was this terrible smell …."

Professor Dumbledore reached out and laid one hand on his arm.  "That will be enough of a description for now.  Can you tell me, Ronald – did Harry cast the Avada Kedavra curse afterwards?"  He looked at Ron over the top of his spectacles for a moment.  "When Sirius and Remus found you, you were unconscious, but that was _after_ the curse was cast.  Do you remember Harry casting it?"

Ron thought about this for a few moments, but couldn't remember and shook his head.  "I'm sorry, Sir.  I don't know."

"I see."  Dumbledore sat back and took a slow breath.  "Perhaps that is as well.  Either way, I believe we may safely say that Tom Riddle is no more.  _Requiescat in pace._ "

"The curse was definitely cast," Bill said, looking from his brother to the Headmaster.  "It didn't kill Harry or Ron, so it must have hit Lord Voldemort – mustn't it?"

"Judging by Sirius and Remus's descriptions of it, I believe we may assume that it did," Dumbledore replied reassuringly.  "Whatever form he may have been in at that point ….  Would that this was the end of our problems."

Ron looked from one to the other.  "What do you mean?  You Know Who's dead!"

Dumbledore looked at him and his blue eyes were intense.  "Unfortunately there are only two witnesses to that fact, and one of them is currently unconscious with little hope of recovery."

"But I was there and – "

"Indeed.  More than that, Ronald, you are the only witness to _everything_.  Do you understand the significance of that fact?"

Ron looked at him uncertainly.  "I don't think so, Professor."

Dumbledore nodded.  "Quite understandable.  You have suffered a deeply unpleasant series of experiences.  Ronald, we have other witnesses to certain events of the evening.  Remus is a witness that Harry was delivered safely into the hands Father Marius, and that Father Marius later drugged the Order guards around the church.  He is a witness to the discovery that Harry was missing, Father Ignatius was murdered and a passage from the crypt was opened.  We have civilian witnesses to the Death Eaters attacking Hogsmeade.  We have witnesses at other locations – Black Manor, Cedar Lodge, The Burrow – to attacks by Death Eaters there.  We have the testimony of Professor Snape to the _plan_ to abduct Harry and to his own escape from Malfoy Manor.  Both Narcissa and Draco Malfoy were arrested there, among others, and there is significant evidence that a Dark ritual was planned and being prepared for.  Sirius and Remus can both testify to finding you and Harry in Hogsmeade. 

"But there is no one else who is able to tell us everything that happened to Harry from beginning to end, and there is no one else who is willing or able to testify to the presence of Lord Voldemort or to his demise at Harry's hands!  Do you understand now why we must keep you isolated?  In the event that Harry is unable to testify, you and _you alone_ will be able to tell the world his story."

Ron looked at Bill questioningly.  His brother looked worried.

"Ron, what Professor Dumbledore's saying is that it's possible people are going to try to say it didn't happen – that there might have been Death Eaters causing trouble, but You Know Who was never there and he's never been back at all, that it's just some of his followers who weren't caught the last time trying to make trouble.  The Minister's been denying he's back all along, and if there's nobody other than Harry who witnessed exactly what happened – and especially if Harry isn't able to testify anyway – then he'll try to whitewash everything.  And if he does that, then some guilty people will get away with it again because they'll be able to tell lies that'll fit right in with his story and he'll be more than happy to accept them.  It helps him to hang on to his position, do you see?  If people find out that You Know Who really did come back and Fudge has been hiding it, he'll be out of office so fast that he'll leave scorch marks on the floor.  So he'll be trying really hard to prove otherwise and we need to keep you safe and preserve your testimony because you're the only person at the moment who can prove him wrong."

"At the moment only a few very trusted people know what truly happened to you," Dumbledore said, taking up the narrative again.  "As I said previously, most of your classmates believe you to be suffering from an unpleasant infection, which gives us an excuse to keep you here.  I must ask you to respect this isolation, Ronald, and not attempt to make unscheduled visits to Harry on the main ward, because it could place both of you in considerable danger."

Ron sat up again with a jolt.  "Is he in danger out there?"

"I think it unlikely at the moment," Dumbledore said calmly.  "There are discreet guards in place in any case, but I believe he will be safe for the time being.  The Minister has been kept occupied elsewhere until now, but in just over an hour he will visit Harry with a small delegation from the Wizengamot and a selection of handpicked senior healers from St. Mungo's Hospital.  Harry's trustees and guardians will also be present.  The healers will examine Harry and give their professional opinion of his condition, including how they believe him to have come by his injuries, and give recommendations for his future treatment.  I am not sure precisely what will happen then, but I suspect Cornelius may favour us with his preferred version of events and the members of the Wizengamot will very likely accord it their approval.  They will then depart and on Monday morning a preliminary report will be presented to a special session of the full Wizengamot, a report which I imagine I and several others will be forced to contest.  It is _then_ that Harry's life will most likely become endangered."

His blue eyes fixed upon Ron again very intensely.  "And should they prematurely become aware of your existence as a witness, so too will your life.  For that reason, you _must_ stay sequestered in here during their visit.  Do I have your word upon that, Ronald?"

Ron blinked and swallowed.  "May I see Harry?"

"I believe it will be possible for you to do so after the Minister and his party have left.  I will make the arrangements, if only you will give me your word to stay here until then, out of sight."

"I promise," Ron said.  For a moment he had to press his lips together very tightly to prevent them quivering; when they were more under his control, he cleared his throat and asked, "Professor, about Harry – is he – will he get better?"

Dumbledore's face went very still and sad for a moment.  "As to that, I cannot say.  He is extremely ill indeed and rather than showing any improvement over the past twenty-four hours, he has shown indications of decline."

"But he's still alive – that's a good sign, isn't it?"

"He survived whatever he did in order to destroy Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore said gently.  "But make no mistake, Ronald – it will take a greater miracle for him to live now than it did when he survived the killing curse as a baby.  Hard as it is for me to advise you of this, you _must_ prepare yourself for the worst." 

Ron's throat tightened.  "You think he's going to die."

Dumbledore bowed his head.  "Yes.  I'm afraid I do."

 

xXx

 

The group that gathered around Harry's bed later that afternoon was not an entirely congenial one.  In addition to Harry's guardians (Sirius Black and Remus Lupin) and trustees (Dumbledore, Petuarius Pettifer and Morag MacDuff), there was Cornelius Fudge, fussily twirling his bowler hat in his hands, Shmuel Goldstein (the Chief Rabbi), Hegwytha Applebrook (High Priestess of the White Goddess Brethren), Father Antoninus Lucidius (a representative of the Bishop of Avebury), Quintus Criggle, Persephone Bellecoeur, Aldous Yaxley and Horace Bulstrode (representing the Wizengamot), and Rufus Scrimgeour (the Chief Auror).  In addition to these worthies was a gaggle of very senior healers who sat on the Board of St. Mungo's Hospital, Madam Pomfrey (well to one side, but keeping a close eye on her patient), and a thin, ascetic-looking man in an old Auror robe who was performing the actual examination of Harry. 

This was Lucien Crane, the highly respected head of Magical Forensics at the Ministry's Auror Division, and it was only his presence, coupled with his gentle and respectful handling of the teenager, that made it possible for Sirius to view the proceedings with anything approaching calm.  Crane was a precise and honest man, who had held his position with the Aurors since the first war.  Thanks to him, nothing less than the truth would be revealed here.

Having talked to Madam Pomfrey at length about Harry's condition upon admission to the infirmary, and made a general investigation of his current medical condition, he was now inspecting the teenager's body for evidence of what had happened to him, and giving a quiet commentary as he did so.  An Auror stenographer stood to one side, taking down his observations.

"... I'll start with his right hand, ladies and gentlemen.  Poppy, you told me that you took numerous fragments of wand-wood out of this hand?"

"Yes - they were sealed in a phial and passed to the Aurors ...."

"His wand shattered, then."

"It wasn't his wand," Sirius said stiffly.  "The fragments were of ash - Harry's wand of record is holly and phoenix feather."

Crane looked up at him briefly.  "That may be one explanation for it shattering, then.  But the other injuries on his hands are more interesting.  Note the deep burn covering the whole of his palm and fingers on the right hand?  And note these ragged wounds in the thumb, forefinger and palm?  The wand shattered _after_ the burn occurred - in other words, he was spellcasting with a burned hand.  That must have been incredibly painful for him.  Now look at his left hand - see the marks on his palm and fingers there, including the many small curse burns all over his hand and wrist?  This is the kind of damage I would expect to find on the wand hand of a wizard engaged in a violent duel.  But Harry Potter is a _right_ -handed wizard."

"He was fighting cackhanded?" Scrimgeour demanded.

"He was.  Based on the evidence, I would say that he fought the majority of the duel with his left hand.  That would account for the number of hits he took - even with training and practice, it's extremely difficult to fight effectively and conduct a proper defence with the non-dominant hand."

"Why would he do that?"

"I believe the explanation lies in the burns on his right hand."  Crane gently inspected the palm again and ran his wand over it, before looking up at Dumbledore.  "Poppy tells me that Harry is a natural born Animator - is that correct?"

"It is," Dumbledore replied.  "According to Filius Flitwick, he is one of the most promising young Animators he has seen in more than a generation.  It's a rare gift these days, as you may be aware."

"I wasn't told of this, Dumbledore," Cornelius Fudge put in, rather sharply.

Dumbledore raised his brows.  "I wasn't aware that anyone is obliged to notify the Minister when such a magical gift presents itself in a pupil, Cornelius."

"This is _Harry Potter_ we're talking about!  If he had such Dark gift, I should have been told - "

"Animation is not considered to be a Dark Art," Dumbledore replied coolly, "and I repeat: there is no requirement to notify anyone - other than parents or guardians, perhaps - of its presence in a pupil."

"You haven't been training him in this, have you?" Fudge demanded suspiciously.

"My dear Cornelius, how should I?  I am not myself an Animator."

"Dumbledore, you know perfectly well - "

"May we get on with this?" Persephone Bellecoeur interrupted in a sharp, annoyed tone.  "I have no desire to spend the night here, thank you, Cornelius!"

"Madam - !"

"Shall I continue?" Crane asked politely, and Fudge waved him on impatiently.

"Thank you.  There is strong evidence of an elemental magic in the burns on the palm which would be consistent with Animation.  As you will all be aware, there are certain magics - weather-working and the Animagus transformation, for example - which don't necessarily require a wand and Animation is one of them.  This, however, is something I've only read about." 

Crane laid Harry's hand gently on the bed and straightened up to face his audience.  "Some four hundred years ago, a German wizard and Animator called Heiger was called upon to remove a golem which was menacing a Bavarian village.  The golem was some ten feet tall, by all accounts, and had been created by a wizard with a grudge against a Muggle in the village.  Now, according to my reference books de-Animating most Animated constructs can be done relatively simply and, in some cases, even by a wizard who doesn't have the Animation gift.  In this case, however, the creator of the golem was an unusually powerful wizard and the construct had certain in-built defences.  Under the circumstances, Heiger was forced to de-Animate it directly - he had to place his bare hand against it and draw the magic powering it out of the construct.  According the text I read, the force of the other wizard's magic being drawn into Heiger burned him."

"Is that possible?" Hegwytha Applebrook asked, frowning.  "It was hammered into us at school that no wizard can draw upon another's magic, and I was under the impression that to try was considered Dark magic and utterly forbidden."

"It is, but Animation is a different discipline," Dumbledore replied.  "Most permanent Animations rely upon the Animator feeding the construct with a strand of their own power and severing the connection between them.  Another Animator wishing to de-Animate the construct then pulls the strand of magic into himself, but as it isn't his own magic it usually passes straight through the body, sometimes causing burns at the contact and discharge points."

"Precisely," Crane said, nodding.  "There's a very simple way to discover if this is what happened to Harry.  If we uncover his feet ...."  He suited action to words, then lifted Harry's right foot.  "There!  See the burn on the ball of his foot?  The energy discharged into the ground through his feet."

"So he faced a golem," Rabbi Goldstein said, and he shuddered slightly.

"Not necessarily.  The golem was merely an example.  But he did face something that was Animated with an extraordinary amount of power, and in de-Animating it he sustained the burn to his right hand."

"And was this the injury that left him in this condition?" Madam Bellecoeur asked.

"No - as I explained, he was spellcasting with that hand _after_ the burn happened.  I would hazard a guess that the spell which shattered his wand was the one that did the damage, but that would be pure speculation and it may not be possible to confirm one way or the other."

"Why not?"

"The wand fragments were too small to get clear readings from," Scrimgeour said.  "They were also highly charged with a reversed-polarity magic - as though the spell that shattered the wand was travelling through it from tip to handle, rather than in the normal direction.  Wands aren't generally built to withstand that kind of energy, and ash in particular is very vulnerable to variations in magical flow."

"This is all rather unsatisfactory," Quintus Criggle remarked in a dry tone.

"That depends on what you're hoping to discover - or not discover - from this, doesn't it?" Sirius said curtly.

"To continue ...."  Crane said quietly.  "Now, those are the most significant of the magical injuries.  The rest appear to have been caused by physical means and are ... somewhat disturbing.  Firstly, please note the marks on Harry's wrists."  He lifted each hand in turn, drawing back the sleeves of the infirmary nightshirt Harry wore.  "You see the bands of bruising and abrasion on the skin?  He was chained to something with manacles."

"Which is consistent with evidence from the basement room discovered by the Auror team sent to secure Malfoy Manor," Dumbledore remarked mildly.

"That may be so; I can't say.  There is also bruising and abrasion on his knees and shins, as though they impacted on a hard surface."

"He was performing a vigil that evening," Father Antoninus put in diffidently.

Crane looked at him.  "These abrasions couldn't have been caused even by prolonged kneeling in church.  Harry would have been using a kneeler in those circumstances, which would have caused some pressure-bruising after a while, perhaps, but not bruises like these.  These were caused by sharp contact with a very hard surface, such as stone."

"Why was he performing a vigil?" Hegwytha Applebrook wanted to know.

"He had been led to believe that the Bishop of Avebury required it of him before he could be Confirmed," Dumbledore replied.

Father Antoninus looked alarmed.  "I must assert mostly strongly that His Grace says he did _not_ require Mr. Potter to do any such thing.  His Grace was told by the curate of the Church of the Holy Bones that Mr. Potter himself had requested it, and he was greatly concerned by the request because of the attendant risks involved in Mr. Potter placing himself in such a vulnerable position for an extended period of time.  His Grace only gave his permission on the understanding that Professor Dumbledore could guarantee Mr. Potter's safety."

"Yes - it would appear that Father Marius misled a great many of us," Dumbledore remarked gravely.

"Has he been found yet?" Petuarius Pettifer asked, speaking for the first time.

"We're still searching for him and several others," Scrimgeour replied.  "We've alerted our colleagues on the continent, just in case."

"Are there any other injuries, Lucien?" Sirius asked Crane.

"Unfortunately, yes.  Poppy, can you help me to raise him a little and slip the nightshirt over his shoulders?"

This was managed with a little difficulty.  Several of the watchers made distressed sounds when they saw Harry's upper body.

"As you can see," Crane continued, "Harry has sustained quite a beating.  The injuries are consistent with him being repeatedly kicked - I believe shoeprints were recovered from his clothes."

"Whether we'll be able to match those shoeprints to anyone in particular is another matter," Scrimgeour commented.

"He had two cracked ribs, which Poppy dealt with as soon as he was placed in her care," Crane concluded.  "Those injuries must have caused him quite a bit of pain.  From the lividity of the bruises and the inflammation in the area around the breaks, I'm fairly sure all of these physical injuries occurred two to three hours before the duel took place."

He and Madam Pomfrey covered Harry again and laid him back on the pillows.

"And is that everything now?" Fudge asked. 

"Not quite."  Crane leaned over and gently brushed the hair back off Harry's forehead to expose his scar.  It was scabbed over and the skin around it was livid and puffy.

Fudge gave his bowler a couple of twists between his hands.  "What are we supposed to be looking at?"

This earned him several impatient looks, and Sirius cast him a look of sizzling contempt.

"What you are looking at is Harry Potter's most famous feature," Crane replied politely.  "His scar.  You'll note that it's less a scar at the moment and more a barely-healed wound."

"So?  What's the significance?"

"I have no idea.  I merely point out the circumstance, which I believe to be of interest if only because the scar is Harry's living link to the criminal known as Voldemort."

A visible shudder went through the observers at the name.

"I think to use the words _living link_ is unnecessarily emotive and taking speculation a little far," Quintus Criggle said coldly.

"Do you, Quintus?" Dumbledore asked, looking at him over the top of his spectacles. 

Criggle turned an odd colour.  "There is no evidence whatsoever that You-Know-Who has returned since Potter saw him off sixteen years ago, so you can hardly claim a link through an old scar, let alone a _living_ link!"

"Actually there's plenty of evidence that he returned," Sirius said sharply.  "If you've conveniently decided to ignore it all of a sudden, that's your problem."

"The problem lies with scaremongers like yourself, Black, who seem to feel an unnatural need to constantly resurrect an old terror in the minds of the wizarding public!"

Sirius would have retorted, but he subsided at the sharp look Dumbledore gave him.  Satisfied that he was temporarily quelled, the Headmaster turned back to Criggle.

"Whether or not you believe Lord Voldemort to have returned is immaterial," he said calmly.  "While Harry lives, with his scar that is a very visible reminder to his connection to Lord Voldemort, no one can forget their shared history.  And that, of course, is the real problem, as it has been all along."

"This concludes my examination, ladies and gentlemen," Crane said into an awkward silence.

"So why is the boy still unconscious?" Rabbi Goldstein wanted to know.

"I'm not a practising healer, so I'll have to hand over to my colleagues from St. Mungo's to explain that," Crane replied, and he stepped back.

One of the senior healers, an elderly man called Diogenes Raft, took his place.  He cleared his throat a little and peered around at the group myopically.

"In addition to all his other injuries, Mr. Potter has suffered an intense magical shock to all of his internal organs, including the brain," he reported in a thin, reedy voice.  "We are not sure how or why, but it may be related to the polarised magical energy Auror Scrimgeour discovered in the wand fragments taken from Mr. Potter's hand.  We have discovered traces of the same energy lingering in his liver, heart muscle and spinal cord.  We believe this magical shock, combined with the near-critical draining of his magic, is what has rendered him comatose."

"Will he awaken?" Petuarius Pettifer asked.

"For him to awaken, there would have to be activity within the brain," one of the other healers replied.  "So far, we haven't detected any activity that we can measure by magical means.  I believe Professor Dumbledore, as a skilled Legilimens, has attempted to reach Mr. Potter's mind ...."

"His mental defences are completely gone and I have had no success in recovering any thoughts or memories from his mind," Dumbledore replied heavily.

"This is almost certainly due to the shock the brain received," Healer Raft commented.  "Magical activity has been measured within him and we have discovered that his magic has gone into stasis, which is normal in any case of coma and cannot be taken as indicative of anything."

"And yet he still breathes," Aldous Yaxley remarked.  "Is that possible with no brain activity at all?"

"The brain operates on many levels," another healer said, a matronly-looking woman with a compassionate face.  "The heart and lungs are controlled by an area of the brain that is not within the conscious control of the patient.  He continues to live on a barely functional level because that particular part of the brain was largely unharmed by the shock it received."

"So you're saying he won't recover," Sirius said in a very controlled voice.

"It's difficult to say this soon after the injuries have been incurred, but it seems unlikely," the woman replied.  "He may continue in this condition indefinitely; he may improve a little, but with no appreciable difference in the brain activity; or he may decline and die.  As he was a healthy, active young man before this happened it may perhaps be a blessing if ... well."

"How soon will we know?" Fudge demanded.

"Impossible to say, Minister," Raft said.  "He has now been in this condition for in excess of thirty-six hours, and Madam Pomfrey has begun to administer fluids and nutrition manually.  His condition will need constant monitoring over the next few days."

"Well!"  The Minister straightened up and pinned on a solemn expression.  "This is all most unfortunate, most unfortunate indeed.  Very sad, I'm sure.  He must receive the very best of care, of course, and I feel sure that our colleagues at St. Mungo's will be well able to provide for all his needs over the coming days."

"He's not going to St. Mungo's," Sirius said flatly.

Several heads turned to look at him in surprise, Fudge's included.  A couple of the healers seemed mildly affronted, but the Minister looked politely shocked.

"My dear Black, whatever can you mean?  Of course he's going to St. Mungo's!  Haven't you listened to our respected medical colleagues?  He will need _constant monitoring_.  This is a school, not a hospital, and Madam Pomfrey is in no way equipped to care for the boy here.  No, he must go to St. Mungo's as soon as it may be arranged."

"And of course, it would be terribly tragic if he died en-route or shortly after his arrival there," Sirius retorted, his voice rising.  "If you think I'm going to entrust my godson's care - _my_ godson, Fudge, _my_ legal responsibility - to a place that has no proper security set-up and which is currently treating several known, proven Death Eaters, where his family may only visit him during fixed hours and will have almost no control over what's done to him, you've got another think coming!"

"And what do you propose to do?" Quintus Criggle demanded.  "Cornelius is quite right - he can't stay here.  He needs _specialist_ care, of a type which can only be provided by St. Mungo's.  Unless you're planning to ship him to a hospital on the continent, which I would imagine would finish him off quicker still.  Perhaps that's what you want!"

"Gentlemen!" Dumbledore said sharply, grabbing Sirius's arm before he react to Criggle's taunt.  "This is most unseemly!  I would remind you that Harry is still here, in front of us, and still very much alive.  Given the terrible ordeal he has clearly suffered, I would expect everyone to have a little more respect for him!"

"What is done to provide young Henry's care from hereon is a matter for his guardians and trustees," Petuarius Pettifer said magisterially, and there was sudden quiet.  "The Minister of Magic and Wizengamot have no standing in this matter; their only involvement lies in the investigation of the crimes committed upon him, prosecution of the perpetrators, and - should he pass away in due course - with the settlement of the Potter Family estate.  Accordingly, as one of Henry's trustees, I would ask that if the Minister and members of the Wizengamot have concluded this part of their inquiry to their satisfaction, they would now please leave.  We will notify you all in due course of the arrangements made for his care."

But Fudge stood his ground. 

"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is very much the concern of the Ministry and Wizengamot!" he said pugnaciously.  "I repeat: the boy cannot remain here.  And if he is not removed to a place suitable for his care and treatment within twenty-four hours, I shall instruct St. Mungo's to remove him from the school infirmary to the hospital, whether his trustees and guardians like it or not!  Good day!"

He clapped his bowler hat on his head and turned on his heel to leave, without so much as a backward glance at the boy lying in the bed.  The rest of the observers slowly followed him out of the infirmary, talking agitatedly among themselves.

Only Lucien Crane and Rufus Scrimgeour stayed behind.

"I need to speak to you, Dumbledore," the latter said briskly.  "And I still need to take Black and Pettifer's witness statements."

"Of course," the Headmaster said courteously.  "If you would care to wait for me in my office, I will be with you shortly."

Scrimgeour nodded and followed a few stragglers out of the infirmary.

Crane looked distressed.  "Sirius, I'm so sorry - I did my best, but the evidence is what it is ...."

"No one's blaming you, Lucien," Sirius said tiredly.  "You did better than I could have hoped for in any case.  The stuff about the golem was particularly useful."

"Except that they'll now try to claim that Voldemort was never alive again at all, and it was just a plot between former Death Eaters who managed to construct a golem and set it loose in Hogsmeade," Remus remarked.

Sirius looked at him.  "You kept quiet, I notice."

"Fudge knows I'm a werewolf, Sirius.  Nothing I say can be used in a criminal court anyway, and I didn't particularly fancy drawing his attention to me and ending up at the wrong end of a vigilante's werewolf gun one evening."

"I'm less concerned by the story they'll dream up than how we'll manage to provide care for the bairn now," Morag MacDuff put in.  She was standing at the head of Harry's bed, gently stroking his hair.

"I meant what I said," Sirius told the others.  "He's not going to St. Mungo's.  I might just as well smother him here and now, if I agree to that."

"Agreed," Remus said.  "I don't believe his life will be worth a Knut if we allow him to be taken to the hospital.  We could have him watched, but who watches the watchers?  Or the nurses?  The healers?  The gifts from so-called well-wishers?"

"Then the question becomes - how do we provide care for him elsewhere?" Dumbledore replied.  "Clearly he cannot remain here, either.  Regrettably, the Minister has a perfect right to have him removed from the school grounds."

"Care could be provided for him at home," Crane suggested hesitantly.  "Despite what Quintus Criggle said, care for someone in Harry's present condition can as easily be provided in a suitably arranged domestic situation as a hospital.  The main question is healer supervision."

"I believe I know how that may be arranged," Pettifer said at once, "and with very little difficulty.  It would also be perfectly legal."

"Except that we daren't take him back to the Manor at the moment either," Sirius replied.  He made a frustrated sound.  "I don't want to rely on the wards - they're restored and the holes have been patched, but I don't believe they'd withstand any kind of assault yet, and there are just too many people with access anyway at the moment."

"Then we take him to his own home," Morag suggested.  "It's at the discretion of the trustees whether he's allowed to live there before he's twenty-one in any case."

"And if he is to die," Pettifer added sombrely, "then it is right and fitting that he should pass away at The Rose House, where his ancestors lived and died."

"If we are agreed?" Dumbledore asked, looking around at them.  There was no dissent.  "Very well.  We should begin to make the arrangements at once.  Madam MacDuff, Petuarius - may we rely on you to speak to the Potter Family elves and arrange for a healer to assist?"

"I believe Poppy and I may be able to put you in contact with a few retired healers who would be willing to help," Crane offered.

"That would be kind," Pettifer replied, with a little bow.

"I'll go to The Rose House now and fetch his nurse," Morag said, picking up her cloak from a nearby chair and putting it on.  "She'll help Poppy to care for him overnight and look after him during the move.  And the other elves can ready a room for him."

"And I," Dumbledore said heavily, "will break the news to his teachers, housemates and well-wishers within the school.  I suspect a number of them may wish to visit him before he leaves; if there are no objections, I will make arrangements for them to do so."

 

xXx

 

Bill helped Ron to walk out through the main ward much later that night.  Curfew had come and gone, and the lights were dim; there were, according to Bill, a number of Order members discreetly guarding the school infirmary, but they were not in evidence and other than that it was quiet.

Only one bed was occupied that night and it had a dim light shining above it.  Remus Lupin arose quietly from a seat next to the head when they approached and reached out to Ron, taking his hand and drawing him into a brief hug.

"Hello Ron," he said softly.  "I'm sorry we had to keep you away from Harry for so long."

"It's all right," Run mumbled.  He looked at Remus and saw a long, bruised scrape along his jaw line and a new weariness in his eyes.  "Are you okay?  Bill told me Mr. Tonks and Snape were hurt at the Manor."

"Ted's pulling through," Remus replied.  "It was a very close shave, but he's showing signs of improvement, thank God.  Severus … well, we had to remove his arm because the Dark Mark was practically alight and looked as though it might poison his whole body.  Not a nice job, but I'm told he's abusing the nursing staff at St. Mungo's already, so it sounds as though he'll be all right.  I suspect it'll be a source of quarrels between him and Sirius for years to come, though."  He tried a smile, but it was weak and he sobered again almost at once.  "Ron … I suspect no one's said this to you yet, so _I'm_ going to say it on the Order's behalf.  Thank you for everything you did."

Ron was deeply embarrassed by this.  "Anyone would have done it," he said, fiddling with the sash of his robe.

"No – no, they wouldn't.  Not everyone.  You rescued him and made it possible for him to do what had to be done, and you stayed with him every step of the way.  That takes a kind of courage and friendship that's very rare, and I want you to know that Sirius and I in particular are deeply grateful to you."

"He's Harry," Ron said, not knowing how else to express his reasons for doing what he'd done.  "I couldn't let him go alone."

"Yes … yes, he's Harry.  I suppose that says it all, really."  Remus stepped back, allowing him access to the bedside.  "We're taking him home tomorrow. Were you told?"

"Bill said so."  Ron stepped slowly up to the bedside, his eyes fixed on Harry's face.  Without his glasses he looked strange and very young.  Ron reached out hesitantly and touched one hand; he was startled to feel that it was as warm as his own.  "Why won't he wake up?"

"It seems to be a combination of things," Remus said.  He gently pushed Ron into the chair, then Summoned a couple more from across the ward for himself and Bill.  "Like you, he was suffering from a profound draining of his magic when he arrived here.  There were other problems though.  The biggest was the intense shock his internal organs had suffered.  Madam Pomfrey told us that earlier in the term he'd done something – recalled a spell, supposedly – and suffered a similar shock as a result.  Do you know anything about that?"

"That was after the scrap on the Quidditch Pitch," Ron said.  "He hexed Theo Nott – hit him with a stunner – and he told me he'd overloaded the spell, so he sort of pulled it back.  It was absorbed back through his wand and knocked him out for about five minutes – he was in here for a day afterwards."

"Is that even possible?" Bill asked, surprised.

"Not that I'm aware of," Remus admitted.  "On the other hand, it fits the evidence we have now – the shattered wand saturated in reversed polarity magic."

"He took it easy for a day and he was okay again," Ron said, confused.  "It didn't do anything like _this_."

"But that was a Stunning Hex," Remus pointed out gently.  "This – well, we're not sure.  We know that someone cast the killing curse, because it nearly hit Sirius and me when we came out of The Three Broomsticks.  Was that Harry?"

"I don't remember that," Ron said.  "I don't know."

"I think you were already on the ground by then.  I saw the curse briefly and it wasn't a single spell-lance – it spread out in a ring around you both, like the circular ripple created when you throw a pebble into a pond.  I've never seen anything like that."  Remus shook his head.  "If you don't know what happened then I suspect we may never know."

Ron looked at Harry again.  "Is there really no hope that he'll wake up?"

"While he's alive, there's hope."  Remus paused, and his mouth twisted for a moment.  "But it's the opinion of the healers that the best we can hope for is for him to stay like this indefinitely … if you can call this the best scenario."

Silence.  Then Bill cleared his throat.

"I don't know Harry very well," he said, "but … I don't think he'd want that."

Ron's throat was tight; he shook his head sharply.  "He wouldn't," he muttered.  When he could speak without shaming himself, he looked at Remus again.  "How will you look after him?"

"Harry's grandfather had a healer on retainer," Remus replied, "a chap called Nicholas Pinker.  The arrangement wasn't changed, even after James and Lily Potter died, and Petuarius Pettifer has asked him to come and supervise Harry's care for the immediate future.  We're taking him to The Rose House – Black Manor isn't secure enough at present.  Besides, the family elves will be able to assist in his care.  In fact, Maffy's here now.  She's camped out in Madam Pomfrey's office at the moment."

There was comfort in this.  "She'll look after him all right," Ron said, looking at Harry broodingly.

"I shouldn't think she'll allow anyone else to help."

"I wish I could."

"I know," Remus said, and Ron could tell from his tone that he really did understand.  "But it's important now that you carry on as though nothing happened to you this weekend.  Do you understand that?  It's going to be terribly hard for you, Ron, but it's vital that no one finds out about your involvement prematurely."

"Malfoy knew I was there," Ron said.  "Hasn't he told?"

"Draco Malfoy isn't speaking to anyone.  Apparently he's received some kind of conditioning against Veritaserum which is hampering things – perhaps a prophylactic potion, we don't know.  But he's being handled by Mad-Eye Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt, so if he does decide to tell voluntarily we can hopefully control how much of his testimony is passed on to the wrong people."

"Will he go to Azkaban?"

"Unlikely."  Remus smiled wryly at Ron's sullen disgust.  "To the best of our knowledge his involvement was only peripheral at best.  He doesn't even have a Dark Mark – although they may have been planning to give him that during the ceremony that was planned for Harry.  But without something concrete to charge him with, he has little value except as a potential witness.  If he continues to refuse to speak, he won't even have that.  He was just an accessory to the act and that gets him a suspended sentence, mostly likely."

"And while he's getting off scot-free, I get to pretend that I was chucking my guts up while everything was happening."  Ron let out a shaky breath.  "I have to act surprised when everyone asks me if I know what happened to Harry, and then I have to go to lessons and …."  He stopped, his breath hitching for a moment, then he got himself under control again.  But he couldn't face Bill and Remus's sympathetic eyes.  "It's not right.  I – I should be ….  I thought I was going to die when we went after You-Know-Who.  I thought we both were.  And that was okay, you know?  It … he …."  He struggled to get the words out.  "A while back he told me that everyone left him or dumped him, so I was just glad that I was with him there.  He – he wanted me to go to The Burrow or up to the school or something, so that I wouldn't get hurt, but I wasn't going to leave him for anything.  Not anything.  And – and – I didn't care if I died.  B-but instead I'm still here and he's … it's not right.  It's not _fair_ , dammit …."

Ron pressed his fist against his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut.  He was not going to cry.  He wasn't.

After a moment, he felt Remus squeezing his elbow gently. 

"Ron … I know this won't seem like much comfort right now, but there are a great many people who are very glad that you didn't die out there and that you're not in the bed next to Harry in the same condition.  I know that's not something you want to hear right now, and it probably doesn't mean much to you compared to what you're feeling at the moment, but you need to know that your parents, your family and your friends value you and we're desperately glad that you're alive and well.  And however much you wish you were with Harry wherever he is now, remember this; while you live, what he was and what he did can never die.  Do you understand that?"

"No," Ron muttered thickly.

"It means that his life had a purpose and that he made a difference; that what he did in Hogsmeade two days ago really happened and was important, and that it won't be forgotten or destroyed by lies," Remus said urgently.  "Ron, you are his living witness.  While you're here to tell people what really happened, the lies that will be told about him can't go unchallenged.  You know the truth; you knew him in a way no one else did.  You know who he was and the difference that his actions made.  And so long as you are here to tell his story, what made Harry the person he was will always remain with us.

"Sometimes all we can do in life is bear witness.  That's far harder than giving up your life – dying is easy, anyone can do it.  Living is much harder, especially when it involves watching our loved ones die before us.  But if no one lived to tell the tales, Ron, there would be no truths and no history.  You've been given the hardest job of all.  You were his friend when almost no one else could claim that and now you have to stand in his place and be his voice.  You're the only person who can do it."

Ron thought about this for a while.  He thought he understood what Remus was saying, but it was too distant and distressing a concept for him to fully process at that moment.  It meant accepting that Harry was going to die and he simply wasn't ready for that - not when he was sitting next to him, listening to him breathe and feeling the warmth of his arm under his hand.  After a while, he sniffed a little and looked almost defiantly at Remus and Bill.

"If he ... when he …."  He stopped.  He couldn't say it.  Saying it might make it happen.  "I want to be there," he said finally, and he braced himself to counter more refusals and explanations.

But Remus nodded understandingly.  "That goes without saying.  You'll be kept informed of what's happening."

Ron nodded.  "I'd like to talk to him now," he said.  "Privately?"

"Of course."  Remus got up at once, and Bill followed more slowly.  "We'll be in Madam Pomfrey's office."

"Thanks."

Ron watched them walk away, then shifted in his seat so that he could see Harry properly.  He studied some of the unfamiliar equipment standing around the bed uncomprehendingly, then turned to examine his friend.  There were dressings on both hands, and one on his neck, and bruises on much of the exposed skin.  Ron remembered that Harry's scar had bled; when he brushed his hair back to look, it had been cleaned and there was a new scab down the length of the jagged mark.

He had said he wanted to talk to Harry, but now that they were alone Ron didn't know what to say.  He felt as though there should be something he could say that would magically wake the other boy, but the words wouldn't come and he knew, hopelessly, that it wouldn't matter even if they did.

This was it; the end of the road.  Not even a year out of their lives.  Just nine short months of almost painful happiness, fun, friendship, arguments and companionship, all at an end.  Such a short space of time shouldn't have seemed like an entire lifetime lived entirely outside of everything else that had happened before or would happen after in his life, and yet it somehow stood out as a separate thing that could never be touched by anything else.  No matter what came next, this would always be a memory apart in Ron's mind.

Eventually he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the corner of Harry's mouth.

"I love you, mate," he said.  "No matter where you are or what happens, I'll always love you."

 

xXx

 

Ron left the infirmary at lunchtime the following day.  He had given a full witness statement to Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody after breakfast, and remained sequestered in his room afterwards, listening to small parties of pupils coming and going as they made carefully supervised visits to Harry.  A couple of people had made an embarrassing fuss over him, which made Ron feel trapped and angry that he was unable to chase them from Harry's bedside or express his own feelings publicly.

Finally, Sirius Black had arrived with Remus and some other people whose voices Ron didn't recognise.  This had been the worst moment, listening to them transferring Harry to a medical litter, settling him for his journey and, eventually, carrying him away.  The wrench he had felt when he knew his friend was finally gone was worse than everything else put together, but Madam Pomfrey - a more sensitive and sympathetic soul than most pupils would ever guess - appeared after a little while with a damp cloth to wipe his face and a diluted Calming Draught that Ron took without protest.

He was dressed and tying his shoelaces in readiness to leave when Professor Dumbledore appeared in the doorway.  Ron stood up, feeling drained and vulnerable and wondering what was coming next, but the Headmaster's expression was oddly steadying.

"Are you ready to rejoin your friends, Mr. Weasley?" he asked.

"I think so, Professor."

"You understand the role you must play?"

That was an interesting way of putting it, and it made Ron feel a little better.  There was no disguising the fact that he was being asked to live a lie for the foreseeable future, and no one was insulting his intelligence by reminding him to be careful what he said or did.

"I was sick all weekend, and I've been told what happened but I don't know any details," he recited, and Dumbledore nodded.

"I have every faith in you," he said gravely.  "I took the liberty of disclosing the true nature of the situation to Miss Granger this morning, in confidence.  It seemed to me that it might be helpful to you to have the Head Girl running interference if necessary.  Certain members of staff have also been placed on the alert.  Should you encounter difficulties, Professor McGonagall and I stand ready to manage the situation."

"Like before," Ron said, understanding.

"Indeed.  The Order of the Phoenix remains in operation and on the alert for the time being and your status remains as before."  Dumbledore's eyes were kindly.  "You are not alone, Mr. Weasley."

Ron thought that he had never felt more alone in his entire life, and for the first time he thought he really understood how Harry had felt.  He had been The Boy who Lived, essentially standing alone against a terrible enemy.  That enemy was now dead and gone, but the danger still remained and now, with Harry carried off the battlefield, Ron somehow stood in his place.

But every duellist had his second, standing ready to take up the challenge when the primary duellist fell, and if this was to be his role Ron told himself that he would not let Harry down.

Standing outside the Great Hall doors a little while later certainly felt like being poised on the brink of a battlefield, but Ron braced himself and opened them firmly, slipping inside and closing them behind him.  He thought it might have been his imagination, but the crowded tables seemed more subdued than usual and he was aware of one or two people watching him as he walked across the room to the Gryffindor table.

"Hey, look - it's Weasley!" he heard Seamus say loudly, and by the time he reached his usual seat next to Hermione he had been greeted by a dozen people.

"Blimey, did _you_ ever pick a weekend to be stuck in the infirmary puking!" Seamus continued, as Ron sat down.

"How are you feeling?" Hermione asked him, and under the table Ron felt her hand squeeze his gently.  He squeezed hers back briefly and released it.

"Like shit," he replied, quite truthfully.  "Madam Pomfrey said I was over the worst and not infectious anymore, though, so she let me out."

"Have you heard what happened?" Dean demanded. 

Ron glanced at him and nodded.  "Pomfrey told me a bit.  Is it true?"

"Dumbledore made a speech at dinner last night," Hermione replied.  "It's all very strange and not terribly clear.  The newspapers have been full of stories about how _something_ happened and Harry Potter was badly injured, but the details are very mixed and there's a lot of speculation.  The Ministry is denying it was You-Know-Who, of course, but I don't think anyone really believes that, and Dumbledore came right out and told us that the evidence points to You Know Who being killed by Harry in Hogsmeade."

"Did you see him?" Seamus asked outright, watching Ron's face avidly.

"What?  Who?" Ron demanded, unnerved by the question.

"Potter, you prat!  He was in the infirmary, they didn't take him home till mid-morning.  Did you see him?"

"Of course not," Ron replied irritably.  "I was in isolation till half an hour ago!  I heard loads of people coming and going, though."

For some reason Seamus seemed to be disappointed by this answer.

"I saw him," Hermione said.  "Dumbledore allowed a few people to visit him before his godparents took him home - mostly Slytherins, but I went with Neville and Tony Goldstein took Amy Snodgrass in after us."

"Was that who I heard howling over him?" Ron asked, feeling his aggravation rising.

"I don't know.  She seems a little upset though."

Ron looked across at the Ravenclaw table; he could just see Amy and she did look rather unhappy, picking at her lunch with a downcast face as her friends talked around her.

"What's she got to grizzle about?" Parvati Patil asked coolly.  " _She_ dumped _him_ last year, didn't she?"

"He's going to die, Parvati," Neville said.  "Doesn't that bother you?"

"Of course it does!  But I don't see why Snodgrass is making such a fuss."

"She was closer to him than most of us.  It'll be different for her," Hermione replied.

"He's not dead yet," Ron pointed out, keeping his voice level with an effort.

"Nobody really believes he's going to make it, though," Ginny said.  She was sitting opposite Hermione and wouldn't meet his eyes when he looked at her.  "The results of the medical examination were leaked to the _Prophet_ and they dug up some ancient old healer who said there was no chance he'd ever recover.  And perhaps that's just as well, since the Ministry will probably try to prosecute him for something if he ever wakes up.  Even though they're saying it wasn't really You Know Who, but some kind of animated model."

"That has to be the most feeble and desperate attempt at a get-out I've ever heard," Hermione said quickly.

"Plenty of people are ready to believe it, though," Neville replied, and Ron was surprised to hear the anger in his voice.

"Folk'll believe anything that makes 'em feel cosy and safe in their beds at night," Seamus concluded cynically.

"The fact that there are probably still Death Eaters out there doesn't frighten them?"

"Ah, but the Ministry's saying they're all either caught now or dead!"

"Which is also probably a lie."

Ron reminded himself that he wasn't supposed to know about Father Marius and held his tongue.

"Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange are dead," Ginny remarked.

"Good," Neville said shortly.

Ron caught the bleak look on his face and remembered that his parents were in St. Mungo's.  Bellatrix being dead was undoubtedly something to celebrate from Neville's point of view, but that wouldn't make his parents sane again.

"Aren't you going to eat something?" Hermione asked him in an undertone.

Ron smiled at her with difficulty.  "Nah.  My stomach's still a bit … you know.  Pomfrey said to be careful what I eat for a while anyway."

She looked unconvinced.  "Well, at least take a roll with you, in case you feel hungry later.  We've got Potions next, you know, and I don't know who'll be taking the lesson because Professor Snape was injured as well, apparently."

Again, Ron had to remind himself not to give away what he knew.  "How did that happen?"

"No one seems to know – even the _Prophet_ didn't have anything to say about it, and all Dumbledore said in his speech was that Professor Snape had been helping to defend Black Manor."

In the event, Potions was a free study lesson in the library for the Seventh Years and Ron was able to relax his guard just a little, although Hermione was clearly itching to talk to him and only concern about their classmates overhearing seemed to be stopping her.  The class that followed was Herbology, and then there was dinner – another meal that Ron felt no inclination to eat.  He forced himself, remembering how he had nagged Harry about meals.  Suddenly it was no mystery to him why his friend seemed to skip meals so often.

Afterwards he went back to Gryffindor to change out of his uniform and collect his outstanding homework, of which there was a significant pile.  He didn't seriously think he would be able to concentrate enough to work on it – it all seemed very irrelevant now – but the pretence had to be maintained.

There were four owls waiting for him when he got to the dormitory.  One was from his parents, adjuring him in careful, non-specific (and very worried) terms to take care of himself, to try to stay positive, and to write to them as soon as he could.  The second had a St. Mungo's mark on the envelope, which confused him until he opened it and found a shaky note from his brother Charlie telling him (in careful, non-specific terms) that he was fine and he hoped Ron was too.  Ron felt a touch of relief at this, for he'd been worrying about Charlie.  The third was from Bill, echoing the sentiments of the rest of his family, and the fourth – the fourth was addressed in Sirius Black's curved and sprawling handwriting.

Ron threw the other notes onto his bed and ripped this one open.  It was short and to the point.

 

 _Ron –_

# 

 _Remus reminded me to let you know that H. arrived home safely and has been made comfortable.  There's no change in his condition, but he's being well looked after, I promise.  One of us will keep you updated every couple of days or if anything changes, don't worry._

 _There isn't much else I can say in a note like this, and you should burn this as soon as you've read it anyway.  I want to apologise for not visiting you when you were in the infirmary, though.  There was no safe opportunity for me to do so._

 _I'm spending a great deal of my time at the moment repeating my evidence for a variety of fools and trying to make the wilfully deaf hear sense.  There probably won't be any fresh news in the newspapers for some days to come, but don't let that worry you; it's perfectly normal when an Auror investigation of this magnitude is ongoing.  Try not to listen to rumours either.  There will be all too many of those, and most of them lies or pointless speculation._

 _And whatever else you do, be very careful.  These are dark days for all of us, but you have the hardest path of all to walk and never think that we – Remus and I especially – don't know that._

 _Take care, Ron –_

 _S.B._

 

xXx

 

Harry's hidden study room on the fourth floor held several eerie reminders of him, including a single woollen glove under a chair and a number of abandoned books bearing cover titles that in no way matched their contents.  Seeing these, Hermione matter-of-factly wiped the illusions off them and racked them neatly on one of the bookshelves, before casting an illusion of her own of empty shelving over the whole.

Not having to look at them made Ron feel a little easier as they talked; the glove he slipped into his own pocket.

"I still can't believe you were with him all the time," Hermione said, sitting down.  "I had a funny feeling that something wasn't right when I couldn't find you on Friday evening, but I thought I'd check on Harry in the infirmary while I was on patrol and when I couldn't find Madam Pomfrey in her office and there was no sign of Harry there, I started to worry.  And then you didn't come back to Gryffindor and I _really_ started to worry." 

She pressed her lips together tightly for a moment and Ron felt a stab of guilt at the tired shadows around her eyes and strain lines around her mouth that shouldn't have been there in a girl of eighteen. 

"When Professor McGonagall announced what had happened in Hogsmeade at breakfast on Saturday, and you _still_ hadn't appeared - well, I went straight to her office.  She tried to give me a story about you being in the infirmary with a tummy bug all along, so I told her that I knew you hadn't been there overnight because I'd been to the infirmary and Harry wasn't there either."  A note of indignation entered her voice.  "Then she locked me in her office until Professor Dumbledore came!  I was there for nearly three hours!"

"I reckon she didn't think she had a choice," Ron replied tiredly.

"I _am_ capable of holding my tongue," Hermione said, but there was no real resentment in her voice.  "Well, Dumbledore came eventually and told me what had really happened.  He said it was so important that I didn't tell anyone a word of what I knew about you that he couldn't take chances.  And he asked me to give him my permission to use a special measure to help me keep it a secret."  She paused and sighed.  "Actually, it wasn't much of a choice.  He said if I wasn't willing he'd understand, but he'd have to Obliviate me if that was the case.  So of course I agreed."

She rolled up her right sleeve and showed Ron a brown mark inside her wrist that looked a lot like a large mole.  On much closer inspection, however, he could see that it was more like an oddly-shaped and very small tattoo, and it was pulsing slightly.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded.

"It's called a _gaes_ ," Hermione replied. She rolled her sleeve down to cover it again.  "Incidentally, this must be how Professor McGonagall stopped Ginny talking about Harry.  I saw the same mark on her arm when we were coming out of the showers the other evening."

"What does it do?"

"It makes it impossible for me to talk to people about what I know," she replied flatly.  "It's quite a complicated piece of magic - Professor Dumbledore even explained to me how it was done, I suppose to make me feel a bit better about it.  I can talk to you about what I know, and to him and Professor McGonagall, and he said he set it up so I can talk to Mr. Shacklebolt too in an emergency.  But if I try to tell someone else, I just can't.  I start talking about something else instead.  I can't write it down either."

"It's for your own safety," Ron told her.

"I know, I know ....  I suppose I'm grateful anyway.  Dumbledore said he thought you'd probably need a friend to talk to over the coming days."  Hermione looked at Ron sadly.  "I should think that's true.  How do you feel?"

She was hardly the first person to ask him that; Bill had been morbidly anxious before he left, and both Neville and Tony Goldstein had taken him aside during the afternoon to express their concern.  They at least didn't know what was really going on, but they had recognised that Ron and Harry were closer friends than it seemed on the surface and were just being kind.  Ron hoped that people would stop being kind to him soon.  It only made things harder.

Hermione, on the other hand, was different.

"Like I said at lunchtime," Ron told her wearily, "I feel like shit.  I've got dressings in places I don't even want to think about.  And it's a bloody good thing we only had Potions and Herbology this afternoon, because I don't think I could cast a spell to save my life at the moment.  Pomfrey told me I nearly drained my magic."  He shook his head.  "I don't remember doing that, but I wasn't exactly thinking about how hard I was pushing myself at the time."

"I don't mean physically," Hermione said patiently.  "How do you _feel?_ "

This of all things was the one question Ron didn't want to answer. 

"Why do people keep asking me that?" he asked irritably.  "What are you expecting me to say?  What do you _want_ me to say?  A couple of days ago I followed my best friend to a church where I saw an old man get his throat cut in front of me by someone I thought we could trust.  Then my friend was abducted and I only managed to follow him by grabbing his arm at the last minute.  I got dragged into a bloody great nest of Death Eaters and had to stand there and watch as my friend got the shit kicked out of him by a traitor and a little Slytherin _shit_ who should have been stamped on at birth.  Then I had to watch him being chained up in a cellar and I ended up stood about six feet away from one of the most terrifying Dark wizards in history."  Ron dragged in a deep, shaky breath.  "I got us both out of there by the skin of my teeth but then I followed him, _voluntarily_ , into a fight I didn't expect us to win.  And now I'm here and he's somewhere else, and if he dies ... if he dies ...."

Ron turned away from her.  He hadn't cried in front of anyone since he was a little boy, and he wasn't about to start now.  For a wonder Hermione let him be, and after a moment or two of sniffing and clearing his throat, Ron thought he had himself under control again.

"Yeah, well," he muttered, not looking at her.  "If he dies, there's just me.  And people are already telling lies about him, so it's up to me to tell the truth."

He jumped when she came to his side and tucked her hand through his arm.

"So how do you feel?" she repeated softly.

Ron's throat closed up again and his chest began to ache with the effort not to give way to grief. 

"Like I want to die too."

 

xXx

 

If Ron was expecting something to happen quickly, he was disappointed.  The next few weeks passed with a painful and relatively uneventful slowness from his point of view.  He sleepwalked through his classes and sometimes it felt as though he only used them to fill in the spaces between the letters he received from Sirius and Remus.

His classmates saw things rather differently, mostly because a great deal _was_ going on, in the form of a constant stream of stories flowing across the pages of the _Daily Prophet_ and numerous other publications.  In the space of a few short days the Ministry had become as leaky as a sieve; if exclusives weren't being given out by anonymous "sources close to the Minister", members of the Wizengamot were expressing their opinions to loitering journalists in a way that was wholly unprecedented in the history of the institution. 

At one point a supposedly confidential Auror report on the status of various suspected Death Eaters was released, causing angst and excitement in equal measure.  Shortly after this, it was admitted that the bodies of those Death Eaters who had died were being released to their families.  On this point most of the families concerned were grimly silent and the funerals conducted in private.  Among those refusing to talk to the press were the Malfoys (who were under house arrest at their London town house) and Petuarius Pettifer.  Pettifer had lost one son during the attack on Cedar Lodge and the other had been arrested; he was showing a grimly dignified face to the world as a result.  One of those who deigned to talk, albeit very briefly, was Sirius Black.  As Bellatrix Lestrange's _paterfamilias_ , and given that her husband was still in Auror custody, it fell to him to arrange her funeral; when asked by a reporter from _The Wizarding Times_ what arrangements were being made for her, he vouchsafed the information that she had been cremated - unusual for a member of the First Families - and her ashes disposed of in a secret location.  When asked about the welfare of his godson Harry Potter, he would only say "No change".

Speculation was rife about the involvement - or non-involvement - of Lord Voldemort in the recent incidents.  The information that Harry was an Animator and had received his injury while de-Animating a dangerous golem or similar in Hogsmeade had been leaked shortly after the Ministry visit to the Hogwarts infirmary.  Curiously, so had the tiny detail of his bleeding and inflamed scar, and the two stories had provided fuel for a never-ending stream of wild theories.  Judging by the tone of the letters to various editors, the magical public had finally united in its belief that Harry had saved them all from _something_ ; but the arguments over what that something was were heated.  The weakness and inconsistency of the Ministry's denials of Death Eater activity continued to propel the pro-Voldemort-involvement camp, and the International Brotherhood of Master Animators suddenly found itself in the spotlight as the public clamoured for information on precisely what Harry had done and how. 

Given that the Brethren (represented by their Grand Master, Professor Flitwick) were really no better informed than most of the public about how Harry had done whatever he had done, there wasn't a lot they could say about it.  They did, however, take the opportunity to educate the community a little on what Animation really was and how it worked, and went so far as to say that should Harry recover (as everyone earnestly hoped he would) there would be a place for him among their number.

The biggest question of all, of course, was whether Harry _would_ recover and speculation about this was also rife.  Harry's guardians and trustees steadfastly refused to comment, as did his primary healer, Nicholas Pinker.  This did not stop the senior healers of St. Mungo's offering their opinions to the press, nor did it stop the newspapers from canvassing a wide range of other "experts", including several Seers and one very startled Muggleborn wizard who had given up magic after the first war and was now leading a blameless existence as an NHS thoracic surgeon in Barrow-on-Furness.

Speculation ran wild at Hogwarts too, but Ron wrapped himself in a cocoon of depression, avoiding all but the most determined of his friends as he trudged from lesson to lesson and waited for the next owl from The Rose House.  The information, as time went on, was that Harry was not doing well; his healer had been forced to intervene with certain charms and devices to help with his breathing and heartbeat, and there were strict legal limitations on the degree to which these could be used.  If his condition continued to deteriorate some hard decisions would have to be made; and Remus's cautious phrasing of this did not disguise the very real anxiety and distress that the man was feeling, which practically seeped out of the parchment into Ron's fingertips and infected him too.

But Ron at least was being kept somewhat informed; the rest of the school was not and as leaked information continued to present itself in the press, a number of quarrels and scuffles over it broke out between the various houses as people took stands on what they believed had happened and was going on.  This went especially hard upon the Slytherins, a significant number of whom were connected via family to the recent events.  Blaise Zabini was trying to keep the house in line in Harry's absence (without much credit, despite struggling with the news that his own stepfather was one of the detained Death Eaters), but they were lacking both their 'king' and their Head of House and, with the departure of some to attend family funerals, they were beginning to feel persecuted as a group.

So when Professor Snape appeared in the Great Hall one lunchtime during the first week of December, he was greeted with an unusual degree of enthusiasm.  He looked thin and drawn, and had one empty sleeve pinned across his chest, but his step was firm and his expression as cold and severe as ever as he strode down the length of the hall and went to speak briefly with the Headmaster and his temporary replacement, Professor Slughorn.  Then he turned and went straight over to the Slytherin table.

"There will be a House meeting in the Slytherin Common Room in fifteen minutes," he said tersely into the sudden ringing silence.  "There will be no excuse for non-attendance -   Mr. Zabini, you will see to it. That is all."




"Thank goodness for that," Hermione said quietly, when the Potions Master had left the hall again as quickly as he appeared.  The Slytherins were already beginning to leave their table.  "Perhaps they'll settle down a little now."

Ron watched the Slytherins too, but couldn't summon much interest.  "He lost an arm," he said after a moment.

"I wonder if it'll make any difference to his work?" Hermione said thoughtfully.  "At least it wasn't his wand-hand."

Ron shrugged.  He didn't really care.

He and Hermione were making their way to their next lesson a little while afterwards, when they were waylaid by Dobby who was the anxious bearer of a message.

"Mr. Wheezy is going at once to Professor Dumbledore's office, sir, if you please.  Dobby is to take him there and give him the password."

Hermione saw Ron's face go very still for a moment at this; then he turned on his heel without a word and began to follow the jogging house-elf to the Headmaster's office.  She had to run a little to catch up with them but was simply relieved that Dobby apparently hadn't been told to exclude her.

"Ron ..." she began, when they were standing on the steps of the revolving staircase, but he cut her off with a quick gesture.

"I'm all right.  I was waiting for this."

"Waiting?"

"Waiting for them to come and say Harry's going," Ron said bleakly.

They stepped off the stairs.  Dumbledore's door was already open and the Headmaster was waiting when they walked inside.  With him was Sirius Black.

Sirius looked terrible as he stepped forward to clasp Ron's hand.  He was wearing formal robes, but his face was haggard and there were dark smudges under his eyes.

"You said you wanted to be told," he said to Ron.  His voice was scratchy and tired.

Ron looked at him and Hermione saw him swallow.  "Is he ...?"

"He's been going downhill all week, and he reached the critical point a couple of hours ago.  Pinker didn't have a choice - he was obliged to notify St. Mungo's because there's a point where it's illegal for him to keep administering artificial aid."  Sirius swallowed too.  "There's a panel of healers who are going to examine Harry in about half an hour.  They'll give a formal opinion to a group of representatives from the Wizengamot - that's why there's a delay, we're rounding everyone up - and then if everyone agrees it's not in Harry's best interests to keep him alive like this, Pinker will remove all the charms and so on, and ... and we'll let him slip away."

"If you wish to be present, Mr. Weasley, you may go with Sirius now," Dumbledore said into the stricken silence that followed this.  "I shall myself be attending as one of Harry's trustees.  I must, however, insist that you continue to maintain your anonymity while you are at The Rose House.  While the decisions are being made, you must remain out of sight."

"I want to be with him when he goes," Ron said, looking up.

"Sirius?"  Dumbledore asked.

"That's a given," Sirius said simply, and Ron relaxed fractionally.  "There shouldn't be a problem - the Wizengamot representatives are only there to agree the decision, they don't have to be present in the room.  Remus and I don't want them there anyway."

"Very well," Dumbledore said.  "Sirius, I think Mr. Weasley's father should be with him.  If you will escort Ronald to The Rose House, I will collect Arthur.  Miss Granger - "

Hermione felt her chest tighten a little when she saw Dumbledore's expression.

"Miss Granger, I fear I must place another burden of secrecy upon you.  This information about Harry should not be released to the school prematurely."

"I wouldn't say anything anyway, Professor," she managed.  "But what should I tell people about Ron?"

"You may tell them that he has been summoned home to his family," Dumbledore replied sadly.  "I believe that will be appropriate when this is over, in any case."

 

xXx

 

The Wizengamot members had already begun assembling in the drawing room at The Rose House when they arrived.  Sirius took Ron inside through a side door and up the back stairs.  Ron had hoped to see Harry before the decision was made, but Remus met them on the stairs to explain in a low voice that the healers were already performing their examination, so Ron found himself sharing a small anti-room with a stranger instead. 

He was a fair-haired man in his thirties, wearing robes of an unusual cut, and he smiled a little when Remus dashed away without remembering to introduce them.

"Polyon Bamber," he said, offering his hand.  He had a definite accent.

"Ron Weasley," Ron said awkwardly, and they shook hands.

"You must be one of Harry's friends," Bamber continued when they'd both taken a seat.  "I'm a healer, by the way - I worked with Nick Pinker a couple of years ago, and when he heard I was passing through he asked for my opinion of Harry's case."

"Oh."  Ron blinked at this.  "You're American, right?"

Bamber smiled.  "Canadian."

"Why aren't you with the other healers, Mr. Bamber?"

"They don't know I'm here," Bamber explained.  "Your Government might not like it, apparently."

"Figures," Ron muttered.

"Yeah.  Nice way your people have of handling things, I don't think."

Ron looked at him.  "What - what do you think about Harry?" he asked, although he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Bamber's expression grew more serious.  "I think he's a guy with the most mixed-up kind of luck I ever saw."

There didn't seem to be much else for either of them to say after that.  A few minutes later Ron's father arrived, a little breathless and still dressed in his office clothes.  Ron performed the introductions and they all sat down again, Arthur looking tired and anxious.  Then the door opened and Drooby, the chief of the Potter Family elves, slipped inside, bowing to them.

"Mr. Black is asking Drooby to tell you all that the healers is ready to give their decision on the young Master," he said in a low voice.  "Drooby will show you ...."

There was a large frame on the opposite wall that was covered by a dark green curtain.  Drooby drew this back to reveal a two-way mirror which showed them what was going on in the drawing room like a window directly into the room.  There was even sound, distant but clear.  Ron saw a number of people besides Sirius, Remus and Dumbledore, some of whom he recognised such as Petuarius Pettifer and the Bishop of Avebury, but many more whom he didn't.  He did notice that the Minister himself wasn't present, and that in his place was a squat, toad-like woman in frilly pink robes whom he recognised only too well from his fifth year at school; Dolores Umbridge, the Under-Minister.  There was a group of healers there as well, at the head of whom was an elderly little man with a cap of white hair who had an air of great calm and competence.

"That's Nick Pinker," Bamber said quietly.  "He was taken on as healer to the Potter family before I was born.  Good man, good healer."

Pinker was talking to the assembled Wizengamot members.

"Having taken advice of my colleagues here - " he bowed slightly to the other Healers, "and consulted with those nearest to Mr. Potter, in particular his legal guardians, it is our conclusion that his condition has reached a point where continuing artificial life support cannot possibly be justified.  The amount of necessary magical intervention in order to stabilise and maintain his life is perceptibly increasing day on day.  He shows no awareness of his surroundings, no reaction to physical or mental stimulus, and those skilled in such matters who have attempted to reach him by means of Legilimancy note that there is no measurable mental activity."

One of the other Healers took over. 

"Magical law is quite specific in these cases.  Life support may only be continued where there is some indication that the patient is at the very least holding his own.  This is far from the case with Mr. Potter.  Having obtained the consensus of all relevant parties - family, colleagues, those with connections to him, and from a quorum of Healers qualified to pronounce on such matters, we are clearly directed to withdraw all magical and medical support from Mr. Potter."

There was a long, sombre silence following this and a number of the listeners bowed their heads.  Ron found that he couldn't breathe.

"I don't like this," Sirius said then, in an unsteady voice.  "None of us do.  But we've discussed it and discussed it and the fact is - while I could happily be selfish enough to keep him alive indefinitely, I can't convince myself that he'd thank me for it.  And however strong his will to live is - was - the fact remains that he's _not there_ anymore.  That more than anything else tells me that we should let him go."

Another silence, then Professor Dumbledore cleared his throat softly.  "What does this mean in practical terms, Nicholas?  For Harry?"

"It's hard to say, but in his current condition ... removal of the charms and equipment supporting his heart and lungs will most likely result in instant failure," Pinker said reluctantly.  "In that case, he'll pass away within minutes at most."

"I see.  He will not suffer?"

"I believe not.  If he shows signs of distress, I'm permitted to administer pain relief - not enough to actually assist death, but enough to make him comfortable until nature takes its course."

Sirius tried to speak, but his throat closed up for a moment.  He cleared it and managed to say roughly, "Are we all in agreement that it should be done?"  No one actually spoke, but the answers were in their faces as he looked around the room.  "It's decided, then."

Petuarius Pettifer spoke then, his face stiff with dignified sadness.  "What should happen if, against predictions, Henry doesn't pass away immediately once life support is removed?"

Pinker looked up.  "The law makes provision for that.  Should he continue to live without artificial support, nothing may be done to assist him to live or die other than the manual administration of enough plain water to ensure he doesn't suffer unnecessarily from dehydration and sufficient pain relief to ensure his physical comfort.  Should he survive for twenty-four hours from the moment magical intervention is withdrawn, we are then legally obliged to begin re-administering assistance while his situation is re-evaluated.  There have been cases where this occurred in the past."  He hesitated.  "But I must say - I think it highly unlikely that he will survive for any _significant_ period once assistance is withdrawn."

"Then I think it should be done," Remus said quietly.  "If there's enough of Harry left  to fight, then I know he will.  But if there isn't ... then it isn't right to prolong this.  Let him slip away to his rest gently and with dignity."

"His life rests now in the hands of one of greater power and wisdom than any mere mortal," the Bishop of Avebury said.  "All that may possibly be done by us has been done.  My friends, let us pray for his peaceful deliverance."

"Legally, Remus and I and his trustees must be present," Sirius said, gathering himself.  "But there's no requirement for anyone else other than his primary healer to be there, and while I don't want to offend anyone I would prefer it if everyone else leaves now.  This is a time for family alone."

Madam Umbridge was quick to step in.  "The Minister requires - "

"The Minister will be informed of the outcome along with everyone else," Sirius interrupted, cutting her off sharply. 

"Any arrangements - "

"Are the business of Harry's trustees and guardians.  I repeat: you'll be informed."

She subsided, looking affronted.  Sirius eyed her coldly.

"Don't worry," he said bitterly.  "We won't embarrass anyone by holding an extravagant public funeral.  Aside from anything else, that's the last thing Harry himself would want and I have every intention of carrying out _his_ wishes in the matter."

Dumbledore stepped in quickly before Madam Umbridge could respond to this.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you will excuse us please ...."

The image in the mirror began to fade and Drooby quietly drew the curtain across it again.

"If the Sirs will be excusing Drooby, he must be seeing the guests off the premises.  Mr. Lupin will come to you soon."

He bowed and slipped away, and room fell into silence.  Ron felt himself beginning to shake.  His father put an arm around his shoulders, hugging him, but Ron was grateful when he didn't speak.  This all seemed utterly unreal to him.  In his mind's eye he could see the look of resolution on Harry's face as he'd turned to run into Hogsmeade village square that night - and the look of relief, of release, that he was finally about to shake off his burden one way or another.  But Ron had never imagined that it would end like this, with a cold legal decision to stop treating Harry and let him die.

Long, painful minutes passed.  Then the door opened again and Remus came in.  His face was pale and his hands trembling a little, but he seemed calm and resolute.

"The other healers have left.  Would you like to join us in Harry's room now?"

Arthur Weasley gave his son's back a gentle pat as they stood up.  "Are you sure you want us there, Remus?"

"Of course."  He managed a smile for Ron.  "We agreed that Ron should be present if he wanted to be."

"Let's go to it," Polyon Bamber said, a remark that seemed strange to Ron as they walked down the passage to the great master bedroom where Harry had been installed upon his arrival at The Rose House.

The master bedroom had been Harry's grandfather's room while he was alive; it was the traditional room of the _paterfamilias._   It was large and airy, facing out over the formal gardens, and by use of many large windows and some subtle charms it made the most of the available light throughout the day.  As he stepped inside Ron thought that if Harry had to be anywhere when he died this was a pretty good place, for it was bright and clean and warm.  The bed he was lying in was a huge mahogany four-poster that made him look small against the white pillows, but he looked comfortable and as though he was sleeping, despite the equipment around him that was keeping him alive.

It could have been so much worse, and Ron supposed that he was grateful it wasn't.

Besides Bamber, Ron, Arthur and Remus, there was Sirius, Professor Dumbledore, Petuarius Pettifer and a dark-haired woman of Sirius and Remus's age whom Ron guessed to be the other trustee, although he couldn't remember her name.  Maffy, Harry's nurse, was also present, maintaining a discreet but devoted watch over her charge.  The healer, Nicholas Pinker, was checking something next to Harry's head when they walked in; he glanced up but finished what he was doing before he joined them.

"Are we all here?" he asked quietly.  "Good.  I think we can begin in that case.  Polyon, I apologise for having to exclude you so abruptly - "

"Not at all," Bamber replied.  He smiled wryly.  "Believe me, I got a pretty good eyeful from where I was and I'd just as soon _not_ run into some of those guys unless it's unavoidable."

"Yes, well it's better if they don't know you're here at all, really."  Pinker looked at Ron.  "You must be Ron Weasley, Mr. Henry's friend from school.  Have you been told what's going to happen here?"

"We haven't had an opportunity yet," Sirius said, before Ron could reply.  Ron looked up at him, startled, and Sirius gave him an effortful smile.

"Very well, I'll explain so that we're all clear," Pinker said.  "You must understand that this is a last-ditch attempt and we are only going to make it because there is nothing to lose by it."

A tiny hope blossomed in Ron's chest at these words.  Until this moment there had been no hope.  Now ... there was something that could be done?

"We also need to be clear among ourselves that what we are going to try is without a doubt illegal under British Magical Law," the healer continued.  "Indeed, it won't even be possible if Mr. Henry fails to survive the supporting charms being removed.  Is that clearly understood?  If, when we remove the charms and devices, his heart gives out or he fails to breathe on his own, the attempt cannot and must not be made."

"What are you intending to do?" Arthur Weasley demanded, his eyes wide.

Polyon Bamber turned to him.  "There have been a couple of cases in Canada and the States where patients in Harry's condition have been revived by an extreme technique," he said.  "Sometimes a patient reaches rock bottom, has the life support removed and against all the odds their heart and lungs suddenly start working on their own again.  We're not sure why, but it's been postulated that the shock of the support being taken away jolts them back into action.  We don't know if that'll happen with Harry and there's only one way to find out."

"All right, I understand that I think," Arthur said.  "But it sounds as though you're planning something else as well."

"There was a case about five years ago, in Montreal," Pinker said.  "Polyon was actually there at the time - a witch in just such a condition had ended up in a Muggle hospital and when her family and healers came to take her away, there was an accident and one of the Muggle electrical devices in her room malfunctioned, giving the woman a shock.  Two days later she woke up."

"Good God!" Arthur said, astonished.  "So you're planning to do something like that to Harry?"

"It's been done a few times," Bamber said.  "But you have to understand - there are no guarantees.  There haven't been many cases where it's been tried and of all of those, only two or three people have actually woken up.  The odds are really racked against Harry, and we wouldn't be trying it at all if he wasn't dying anyway."

Ron didn't care about odds.  It was something that could be done and that was the first good news he'd had in over a month.  "What do you have to do?" he demanded.

"A sharp, painful shock must be administered to the whole nervous system for a few seconds," Pinker replied.  "Obviously we will use a spell rather than electricity, but unfortunately it needs to be very precise and there is only one pain curse which can deliver the required shock to exactly the right places."

"Cruciatus," Sirius said grimly.

Pinker inclined his head to him.  "Just so.  And as the curse is Unforgivable and there are currently no circumstances in British magical law where it may be used without attracting a term in Azkaban, this is a dangerous undertaking in more than one way."

"Which is why I have volunteered to administer the curse," Dumbledore said calmly.  "I am less likely to be challenged should someone discover our use of it, and I have enough experience of it to modify the strength so that damage will not be caused in the process."

"You're okay so long as he doesn't get too much of it for too long a space," Bamber said.  "The research I've read recommends four attempts at five seconds each.  If he doesn't respond to that, then he's not going to."

"Let's get on with it then," Remus said.  "I don't see any point in talking - it's obvious that we have to try, we owe it to him."

"Agreed," Mr. Pettifer said, and Sirius and the woman nodded.

"Very well," Pinker said.  "The first stage is to remove the supporting charms and devices and see if he will live unaided."

He and Bamber approached the bedside and began to unhook things with Maffy's assistance.

"Research recommends giving him ten minutes to acclimatise before starting the shock therapy," Bamber said quietly.

With the devices unhooked, they began to remove the charms as well.  It was a tense moment; Harry's breathing became laboured and irregular almost at once, and Ron found himself gripping his uncomplaining father's arm tightly as they all held their breath, watching.

His breathing seemed to stop for a few seconds ... and started again.

Even Pinker seemed to let out a shaky sigh at this.  "Excellent," he murmured, monitoring Harry with his wand.  "Breathing and heartbeat a little slow, but growing steadily more regular ....  Polyon, shall we put him onto his side?  The curse has a nasty habit of causing the victim to choke."

Harry was gently eased into the recovery position and supported with pillows.  The minutes began to tick past and Ron found his eyes going from Harry to the bedside clock and back, counting down the seconds.  He was not alone in this.

"He's doing good," Bamber remarked.  "Good man, Harry!  You're not ready to quit yet, are you, buddy?  Of course, it helps that he was in pretty good shape before all this happened," he added as an aside.  "Could do with a little more meat on his shanks, but he's only a kid really.  Still got some growing to do."

Pinker's eyes were on the clock.  "Nearly there," he said.  "I suggest we all stand back, just in case.  Professor Dumbledore?"

"Maffy, please step away from Harry," Dumbledore requested. 

The little nurse-elf looked ready to cry, but she did as she was bidden and Ron was surprised when she came to stand by him and gently took his hand, patting it.

Dumbledore stood at the foot of the bed and for a moment closed his eyes as though trying to prepare himself.  Then he opened them and raised his wand.

 _"Crucio!"_

Ron had been wondering how the curse could work on someone who was supposedly insensate, but to his horror it swiftly became apparent why Cruciatus had an edge over every other pain curse.  Harry's body went straight into a violent spasm, every muscle seeming to lock and twist.  Ron couldn't watch; he squeezed his eyes shut and heard someone - possibly Sirius - make a kind of moan deep in his throat.  Maffy clutched at his hand tightly and echoed the moan with a whimper of her own.

Then it was over and the two healers went straight to Harry's side to examine him.  There was a long pause, then Pinker shook his head.

"Nothing.  Let's try again."

Once more everyone stepped back.  The tension in the room was almost a living thing.

 _"Crucio!"_

Ron half turned his head away, gritting his teeth, as Harry was racked by the curse.  He saw the woman flinching, and Remus put his arm around her.

"That's two," Bamber said, as he and Pinker reluctantly pronounced no change.  "Again, Professor."

 _"Crucio!"_

"Oh Christ ...." Sirius muttered savagely, hugging himself tightly.

Pinker and Bamber went to check on Harry again.  This time the examination took longer and they turned Harry a little, pulling down his nightshirt and pressing wands to the top of his spine.

"Professor, will you attempt to reach his mind, please?" Pinker said abruptly.

"Of course."

Dumbledore went to Harry's side and touched his temples gently with the fingertips of his left hand.  There was a long pause and Ron found himself chanting silently at Harry to wake up, wake up, wake up ....

"I believe ..."  Dumbledore paused, his eyes far away as though listening to something.  "Yes, I do believe his mind may be waking."

Ron let out a cry before he could stop himself, but no one chided him for it - he was suddenly seized in an embrace by several people at once, and even Bamber let out a little crow of satisfaction.  Maffy burst into tears.

"Like a sleeper, murmuring to himself between dreams and waking," Dumbledore said, almost to himself.  His eyes suddenly focussed upon Pinker.  "Rather a grumpy murmuring, if the truth is told," he added wryly.  "Something tells me that Harry will not be best pleased with me when he finally rejoins us."

"I believe that to be a price worth paying, Sir," Pinker replied, smiling broadly.

"I would pay a far greater price than that to have him among us, well and whole, once more," the Headmaster replied.  "A very far greater price indeed."

 

xXx

 

It seemed that he floated for the longest time, quite content to simply be and nothing more than that, drifting on the endless sea of time and space, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, thinking nothing.

Then there was pain, followed by dreams.

He walked through the world that he had once known to find that he was alone there.  There were gardens beset by autumn, full of blowing leaves and cold winds and unkempt borders.  There were streets full of empty shops, their windows boarded up and their signs taken down.  There were houses full of furniture under canvas covers, inches deep in dust and decked with cobwebs.  And he could hear voices belonging to people he couldn't find.

 _… says we should talk to you, because you can still hear us in there …._

Sometimes he thought he should know the voices but the names would never come to him and they were so far away –

 _… just  put the wireless on, there's a game and you always like a good game, don't you?_

He felt very tired.  It was easier just to lie down where he was and sleep again.

 _… know it's hard, but we won't give up because we know you wouldn't …._

 _… don't go back …._

 _… I have some diaries here, I think you'll find this very interesting…._

 _…must be washing him, yes …._

The voices were with him even when he tried to sleep.  He got up and kept walking.  He noticed now that there were picture frames on the walls of the houses, but nothing inside the frames; he wondered why that should be and what should be there –

 _… this was your great-great-grandfather's doing, I believe …._

 _… going to read to you, some boring old book but I reckon you won't mind much …._

 _… bunch of fools, the lot of them, but we'll show them, eh?_

– nor were there words or pictures on the posters outside an abandoned theatre he found, and for the first time he wondered what had been staged there and whether it had been any good –

 _… can't sing for toffee so I'm warning you, if you don't come back soon you'll be sorry …._

There were linens still on the beds, soft and pleasing under his hands, and he gave way to the sensation, the first he really recalled having in a long while, and lay back upon them for a moment, enjoying the feel of softness against his skin and listening to the voices that seemed so much closer than before –

 _… not entirely sure this is appropriate, I think he's enjoying this more than he should …._

 _… here, I'll do it, I don't mind …._

 _… I'll bet you don't …._

– and in a rush he remembered sunlight and rainfall and the wind rushing past his face –

 _… they won, they won, did you hear that Harry?_

He wondered who Harry was, tasting the name on his lips and examining its familiarity thoughtfully.

Harry … Harry ….

 _… accused me of leaving paw-prints on the rug and warned me that I'd better not have fleas, the nerve of it!_

 _… well, you did have fleas once, many years ago, and I daresay she hasn't forgotten …._

 _… fleas are an experience you never forget …._

 _… somehow I don't think Harry is remotely interested in your fleas …._

Harry.  He was Harry.  He was Harry? 

Yes.  He was Harry.

 _… of course, Daughter of Eve, said the Faun, the further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets, the inside is larger than the outside …._

And suddenly he knew that voice, that was the voice that went with the red hair and freckles and the smile that could light up a room ….

" … I see, she said, this is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the stable door!  I see … world within world, Narnia within Narnia …"

The effort it took to open his eyes was like trying to lift a set of twenty pound weights, but it was worth it for there was sunlight streaming in through long windows and the person sitting beside the bed was the owner of that red hair and those freckles, and he was frowning over the battered paperback book in his hands and shaking his head a little.

"I don't know, mate – maybe Remus was right and I should have read the other books first, 'cause this doesn't make a bit of sense to me."

Ron.  Harry remembered now - his name was Ron. 

And all he could do in response to that familiar frown of puzzled concentration was make a kind of wordless laugh, more a sigh in his throat –

Wide eyes flew to his face at the weak sound, and grew huge and round.

 _"Harry!"_

The cry woke the great black dog that was sleeping on the side of the bed, and brought Remus and Maffy running in from the next room.  In a rush the dog was gone and in its place was a dishevelled Sirius, sitting up and staring at him.  They were all staring at him hungrily, hopefully.

"Harry?"

He could feel his body and limbs but nothing seemed to want to move at all.  Harry made a supreme effort and managed a smile –

\- and found himself suddenly smothered in loving embraces.

 

xXx

 

The Wizengamot ceased sitting on the eighteenth of December for the period of three weeks that comprised Christmas and Yule.  The chamber had talked almost exclusively of nothing but the continuing investigation into the Death Eater Resurgence (as it was being called by the press) since the beginning of November, and the final session before the close of business was intended by the Minister to wrap matters up a little in preparation for the trials that would begin in the New Year.

Given the intense public interest in the matter, it was not entirely surprising that the public galleries of the chamber were full almost to bursting point with reporters, interested parties and, in the case of the various First Families represented in the main chamber, the spouses and heirs of certain _paterfamilii_.

The attention might have daunted someone less sure of himself, but Cornelius Fudge was enjoying the attention as he talked self-importantly about the abortive reappearance of Lord Voldemort's followers.  He stood in the centre of the chamber, a bundle of reference notes clutched in his left hand, and paced back and forth as he talked.

"… So, to summarise the events of the thirty-first of October and first of November, we are told that Henry Potter the Younger, known more familiarly to us as _Harry_ Potter, went to the Church of the Holy Bones at sundown on the thirty-first in order to perform an overnight vigil prior to his Confirmation the following day.  He, and others connected to him, had allegedly been given to believe that this vigil was necessary by the curate of the parish, one Father Marius Lundes, who told Mr. Potter and his trustees that this was the wish of his Grace the Bishop of Avebury.  This we now know to be untrue, as we have his Grace's formal statement to the contrary, voluntarily given under Veritaserum – please see the document being circulated."

Paper arrows were fluttering around the chamber to each member of the Wizengamot.  Fudge continued.

"At around eleven o'clock that evening, Father Marius is alleged to have slipped out of the church and administered a substantial dose of the Draught of Living Death to a number of self-appointed guards who were watching the church in order to protect Mr. Potter.  However, one of those guards was a werewolf and consequently the drug failed to have a full effect.  A werewolf's testimony is of course inadmissible to this chamber or any court of law so we must rely upon the statements of the attending Aurors who later examined the church – "

Sirius Black stood up quickly.  "I would remind the chamber that the werewolf in question is in fact Remus Lupin – one of Harry's godparents, a former professor at Hogwarts, and my legal spouse.  His testimony is sound and I entreat you to take note of it!" 

At a wave of his hand, another flock of paper arrows began to circulate.  Some members of the Wizengamot accepted the document with varying degrees of interest; others stiffly ignored it.  This caused a murmur among the members the watchers in the gallery – one of whom was none other than Remus Lupin himself.  Remus shook his head ruefully; meanwhile, Cornelius Fudge gave Sirius a brief, distasteful look and carried on regardless.

"The statements of the attending Aurors tell us that when they arrived at the church – some four hours after the drug was administered to the watchers – they discovered the building wide open and well-lit.  Mr. Potter was gone and the only evidence of his prior presence were certain articles, prayer books and a Bible, in the Potter Family pew.  Father Marius was also missing and the body of the parish priest, Father Ignatius Yaxley, was lying on the floor in front of the Potter pew with his throat cut.  In addition the Aurors discovered that the Black Family crypt had been opened and there appeared to be the entrance to a hidden passageway also standing open.  As to where this passage led, one of the Aurors entered it and upon following it to its terminus discovered that it led to the basements of Black Manor, and I will cover this part of the events in due course.

"But to conclude the matter of the church - it may be, based upon the _admissible_ evidence presented, that you may conclude that Mr. Potter was lured to the church quite deliberately, and with malice aforethought, with the intention of his abduction.  You may further conclude that this malicious action was undertaken by Father Marius Lundes, the curate of the parish, and that the parish priest was murdered during the committing of this act of abduction.  However, at this point in time, with Father Marius himself still at large and with no other direct witness to events, this can be only speculation."

There was a rumble of dissatisfaction from some quarters at this.  Fudge coughed a little, consulted his notes, and kept going.

"Moving on ….  It is given in certain witness statements that the intention of a certain group of individuals was to attempt to protect Mr. Potter while he undertook his vigil at the Church of the Holy Bones.  Please see the documents being circulated ….  Now, you may well ask yourselves why these individuals felt such concerns in the first place and, indeed, if they felt so concerned for his welfare, why they permitted the vigil to proceed at all.  These are certainly questions that must be asked, but for the time being we will let this aspect of the situation lie.  Suffice it to say that on the evening of the thirty-first of October, several persons, including the honourable member of this chamber Sirius Black, his kinswoman Andromeda Tonks, her husband Edward and their daughter Nymphadora, the Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt and one Dilys Haydock, were all gathered at Black Manor in anticipation of relieving the watchers at the church at midnight.  Before they could depart upon this errand, however, the alarm was raised by Severus Snape – also a member of this chamber and the Professor of Potions at Hogwarts School – who arrived at Black Manor in a condition of some disorder.  He claimed that he had been summoned to Malfoy Manor by former associates among the Death Eaters earlier in the evening and that when he arrived he was treated roughly and imprisoned in a pit in the gardens of the house.  He said he managed to escape and went straight to Black Manor to warn of the trap Mr. Potter was being lured into.  Please see his witness statement, which is being circulated.  You may wish to take particular note of the names of the Death Eaters he has given.  You may also wish to exercise your own judgement as to whether this witness can be considered reliable, given his admission of a previous association with the followers of He Who Must Not Be Named.

"Nevertheless, he did go to Black Manor and his alerting of Black and the other persons present allowed them to mount a timely defence when certain individuals entered the house via the aforementioned passage from the church into the basement.  Those individuals were one Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband Rodolphus, both escapees from Azkaban; one Gervase Pettifer, second son of the honourable member of this chamber, Petuarius Pettifer; one Giuseppe Zabini, heir of our honourable member Antonio Zabini; and, most regrettably, one Lucius Malfoy, a noted member of this chamber.  Please note that the identities of these individuals is not disputed, nor is it disputed that they entered Black Manor illegally for purposes which we may never entirely understand.  Please see the various witness statements being circulated, and also the confessions given to the Aurors by Rodolphus Lestrange and Giuseppe Zabini.  In the course of the fight which ensued, Edward Tonks and Severus Snape received life-threatening injuries, as did Gervase Pettifer.  Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy were killed outright.

"At the same time as this was going on, attacks were also being made upon a number of other properties, including Cedar Lodge, the home of Petuarius Pettifer.  That particular attack appears to have been led by Mr. Pettifer's eldest son and heir, one Claude Pettifer, and during the course of the fight that ensued he sustained life-threatening injuries which proved fatal upon his arrival at St. Mungo's.  Please see the witness statements of Petuarius Pettifer and his granddaughter Primrose, and the signed confession of Walden Macnair, a former Ministry official, who was captured during the attack.

"Now let us turn our attentions to Malfoy Manor, which appears to have been used as a base of operations for those individuals claiming to be modern-day Death Eaters.  Upon the alarm being raised by Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt - who, as you recall, was at Black Manor during the attack there - a team of Aurors and Hit-Wizards were sent to secure the Malfoy residence.  The full reports of their findings are being circulated - "  Another flock of arrows raced around the chamber.  "When they arrived they discovered the property to be well-lit and clearly anticipating a considerable degree of occupation at some point, but otherwise largely deserted.  One Phineas Parkinson was discovered in the rose garden, unconscious and having the appearance of suffering considerable ill-treatment, next to a pit which bore the appearance of the one described by Severus Snape as having been used for his illegal incarceration.  Unfortunately, we are unable to confirm this further as Parkinson was discovered to have been subjected to illegal curses of such ferocity that his mind was permanently damaged and his body in a state of shock so severe that he later died.  When the team proceeded into the house, they discovered Draco Malfoy, the son and heir of Lucius, heavily stunned and locked inside a cupboard in the kitchens.  The family's house-elves were nowhere to be found and young Malfoy himself has so far refused to give an accounting of what happened to him.  As he appears to have received some manner of conditioning against Veritaserum, enquiries in this direction have been less than satisfactory.  At any rate, he was taken into custody and the team continued further into the house.  Much to their dismay, they discovered evidence of Dark activities including, in the Manor's ballroom, preparations for a Dark ritual of considerable heinousness.  Please note the details of the Auror report already circulated.  You will observe that a large snake of a type rarely seen in Europe was found loose in the ballroom and that a pedestal made of certain illegal substances was also found with a wand resting upon it.  This wand was tested and discovered to be the wand of record of Harry Potter.

"The team secured the house.  In the process they discovered a hidden basement area that appeared to be have fitted out as a crude cell or dungeon, as there were chains and manacles set into the floor which bore traces of fresh blood.  Finally, during an extensive search of the property the team located Narcissa Malfoy, wife of Lucius, who was sequestered in her private rooms.  This lady claimed to know nothing of what was going on in her home and complained of ill-health, although upon examination by an Auror healer she was found to be suffering little more than stress and agitation and certain small maladies naturally occurring in the middle stages of pregnancy.  She too was taken into custody and given treatment, but like her son she has declined to comment upon the events of the evening or upon the discoveries made at Malfoy Manor, and use of Veritaserum is contraindicated with pregnant women"

Here Fudge had to pause and take sip from a glass of water, allowing his audience a few moments to shift in their seats and exchange brief comments with each other.  When he returned to the centre of the room to continue, Sirius Black was on his feet again and waiting to speak.

"Would the Minister please tell us what became of the snake that was found at Malfoy Manor?" he asked.

Fudge was caught on the hop by this question and stared at him for a moment, blinking.  "The snake?"

"The snake," Sirius confirmed politely.

"Of what possible relevance could that be?"

"It _is_ an item of evidence," Sirius pointed out reprovingly.  "Has it been taken into proper custody?"

"To what purpose?  It's a _snake._ "

"And if a Parselmouth could be located, it might be possible to interrogate it."

This caused some amusement among certain members of the Wizengamot, including Fudge himself, although his chuckles seemed a little forced.  Quintus Criggle stood up, a cold smile on his lips.

"A jest in poor taste, Black, as the only known Parselmouth in existence today is your godson, Harry Potter - and you more than anyone are aware that he's in no position to assist us even with his own testimony, let along that of a _snake_.  Besides, what possible use could the testimony of a reptile be to anyone?"

At this, Professor Dumbledore stood up.  "The fact that Harry is the only _known_ Parselmouth does not preclude another being found.  As to the value of the snake's testimony, it is known that a large snake of a very rare species was in the keeping of Lord Voldemort at the end of the last war.  The presence of a snake is therefore somewhat suggestive."

"Suggestive of what?" Fudge snapped.

Dumbledore glanced around at the other members of the Wizengamot.  "Why, of the presence of Lord Voldemort himself."

"I knew it!  I knew it!  I _knew_ you would insist in perpetuating the myth that You Know Who has returned!  But there is no evidence of his presence in this, no evidence at all - "

"As to that, Cornelius, I fear we must remain in disagreement, for it is my contention that there is a very great deal of evidence pointing to his presence in this entire affair - and indeed to his influence in a number of incidents prior to this!"

"Circumstantial evidence, Dumbledore!" Criggle pointed out.  "Nothing that can be considered conclusive, nothing that will stand up in a court of law!"

"As to that, we shall see," Dumbledore replied imperturbably.  "But forgive us, Cornelius - we interrupted you.  Please continue."

He sat down and after a moment Sirius and Criggle followed suit.  Much ruffled, the Minister gathered himself and consulted his notes.

"Where - oh yes.  Hm.  So there was evidence of a Dark event of some magnitude being planned for that evening at Malfoy Manor, and one may speculate upon the possible involvement of the Malfoy family - Lucius without a doubt, regrettably, and most likely some measure of involvement upon the part of his wife and son, although that is more difficult to ascertain.  And it would appear that Harry Potter was intended to take some unwilling role in this event and to that purpose he was abducted from the Church of the Holy Bones and taken to Malfoy Manor, where he was held in restraints in the basement of the house for a period of time and his wand taken away from him.  However, at some point in the evening he, like Severus Snape, managed to escape.  How we do not know and he is unable to tell us, but Draco Malfoy was found to be without his wand, and the wand Harry was using later which was destroyed appears to fit the description of young Malfoy's own, so we might speculate that at some point he escaped his bonds and overcame young Malfoy.  When this occurred and where precisely Harry went from there we are not sure.  There is a period of an hour or so that is unaccounted for - "

Petuarius Pettifer stood up at this point.  "He went to his family home, The Rose House," he said in a stately voice, and he waved out another flurry of paper arrows.  "Please see my own private notes upon this matter."

Criggle bounced to his feet again.  "How do you know that?"

"I went to The Rose House later and questioned the house-elves and portraits.  Indeed, I received a very full account of what occurred there."

"The testimony of pictures and house-elves is inadmissible, Pettifer!"

"Indeed, but as circumstantial evidence it adds a certain clarity as to Henry's movements which is useful in terms of our esteemed Minister's summary," Pettifer replied calmly, and he sat down again.

"Yes, well," Fudge said, eyeing him narrowly.  "Thank you.  At any rate, at some point young Potter decided to go to Hogsmeade.  Again, we cannot say precisely why he did so, but the most likely explanation - one which, quite remarkably, is agreed upon by all parties - is that he intended to go to Hogwarts to alert his teachers there as to what had happened to him.  But his arrival in Hogsmeade coincided with a shameful attack upon the village by a number of individuals who may or may not have been Death Eaters, and in the battle that followed he received injuries which rendered him wholly insensible and which, it is generally agreed by expert healers, he will not recover from.  Indeed, this chamber is aware that we have been in daily expectation of sad tidings from that quarter since the beginning of December."

Fudge bowed his head solemnly.  "This concludes my summary of the events."

Persephone Bellecoeur stood up.  "You seem to be forgetting something, Cornelius," she said rather sharply.

"He's forgetting quite a lot of things," Sirius said, without bothering to stand up.

"Indeed.  What of the golem we were told about, that the boy destroyed and which appears to have been the source of his incapacitating injury?" she demanded.

Fudge began to shuffle his papers nervously.  "An Auror forensic team is still working upon this matter - "

"If that's the case, why have you decided to present the Wizengamot with a summary of events at this stage?" another member said indignantly, standing up quickly.  "How can you provide us with a balanced summary if all the information isn't available yet?"

"Perhaps I may be of assistance, Minister."  Rufus Scrimgeour, who held a seat on the Wizengamot as Chief Auror, stood up slowly and turned to face the other members.  "A preliminary analysis has been performed upon the area in which young Potter was found.  You will recall from earlier reports circulated that there was significant trace evidence at the scene in Hogsmeade, and of particular interest were a series of scorch marks on the surrounding buildings that seemed to have been made by the Avada Kedavra curse, a ring of oily ash on the ground surrounding Mr. Potter, and the discovery of the handle of a wand which was badly damaged by curse residue.

"As to the scorch marks, unfortunately we have yet to explain how the curse could have damaged so many buildings simultaneously or in such a way.  The wand-handle was of great interest, however, being constructed of yew and phoenix feather - "

Dumbledore stood up.  "Has the handle been examined by a reputable wandmaker?"

"It has," Scrimgeour confirmed.  "Mr. Ollivander was invited to examine it and had no hesitation in confirming that it was a wand of his making and that the owner of record was one Thomas Marvolo Riddle, which is of course the true name of Lord Voldemort."

Fudge looked deeply agitated by this.  "The presence of the wand is not indicative of You Know Who's presence in Hogsmeade!  It's been missing since the last war and could have been taken there by any of his followers!"

Persephone Bellecoeur rapped her cane on the floor sharply.  "What about the golem?" she demanded.

"I was getting to that, Ma'am," Scrimgeour said, with a slight bow.  "The ring of oily ash I mentioned has been analysed and has been proven to be the residue of human flesh along with certain other magical elements.  We are performing further tests upon it and consulting with colleagues in Europe who have some experience of these things, but our preliminary investigations certainly support a particularly Dark and nefarious form of Animation at work.  If this _was_ a golem, it was a golem of highly unusual properties and strengths, and it raises a number of questions about the wizard or witch who constructed it."

Dumbledore stood up once more to address the chamber.  "This house may remember a report I made to it some three years ago regarding the initial return of Lord Voldemort.  Harry Potter gave a very detailed account of the ritual that resurrected him and the method bears a strong resemblance to certain Dark and prohibited forms of Animation used in creating golems.  You may recall that the witch who performed the resurrection was Bellatrix Lestrange, newly escaped from Azkaban at that point, and although we have no previous evidence of her being an Animator the gift runs in her family, the Blacks, as Sirius here can attest."

"We are bearing that report in mind during our investigations, Professor," Scrimgeour said rather stiffly. 

"I'm sure you are, Rufus.  I was merely reminding our members of the circumstance."

"But there is no evidence that this was You Know Who in Hogsmeade!" Fudge almost shouted.  "You have no witnesses to the nature or form of this golem at all, whatsoever!  It could have been shaped like a Giant Panda for all we know!"

Dumbledore peered at him over the top of his spectacles.  "I find it unlikely that any Death Eater would create a panda-shaped golem, let alone willingly follow it into Hogsmeade and there wreak havoc, Cornelius," he said mildly.  "As to the matter of witnesses, we have already had this conversation on several occasions.  Must we go over it again?"

"Yes, yes, your famous yet unidentified witness who was supposedly present every step of the way during Potter's abduction!" Fudge sneered.  "I have yet to see more than a stenographer's draft of a statement which might as well have come directly from the quill of Publius Chase for all the evidence we have of its authenticity!"

"You have my word as to its authenticity," Dumbledore remarked rather dryly.

The two men stared at each other for a moment, then Fudge began to bluster once more.

"No one doubts your word, Dumbledore, but anonymous testimony is inadmissible, as you very well know!  Produce this witness and _then_ perhaps the testimony will be taken note of."

"And I have already told you, Cornelius, that until I am fully satisfied of the witness's complete safety, you will have to make do with the written statement."

"I have already offered you – "

"I am afraid your offer of a hand-picked Auror guard stands rejected still," Dumbledore said apologetically.  "I have lived a very long time, you know, and have become distressingly familiar with human nature.  Were it my own life in question I might accept the offer, but I cannot and will not risk the life of another."

"Are you suggesting that my people can't be trusted, Dumbledore?" Scrimgeour asked coolly.

Dumbledore looked at him.  "I'm suggesting that your people, Rufus, are fallible human beings.  Harry Potter was betrayed by a member of the Omnis Arcanum priesthood, a man trusted even by myself.  If a man of God may be so swayed by the clever words of another, why not an Auror?  No, I believe the witness must remain safely anonymous for the time being."

"Then you have no witnesses at all!" Fudge barked.  "None at all!  No one to say what form the golem took or even if there was a golem - "

He was interrupted by the heavy _clunk_ of a door closing.

"That's not true," a hoarse voice said.

Fudge whirled, shocked, and a low murmur began among the watchers as two figures stepped out of the shadows in the doorway.  As they stepped into the light, they resolved themselves into a tall, slender youth with freckles and red hair, wearing a Hogwarts uniform, and a second youth, shorter, with messy dark hair and spectacles, wearing formal robes in bottle green and gold. 

Harry Potter.  He was leaning heavily on an ornate cane in his left hand and the red-headed youth on his right, and he looked almost translucently thin and pale.  But his bearing was upright and determined, as was the grim smile on his lips.

Sirius was out of his seat in a flash.  "Harry!  What the devil - you should be in bed, you'll make yourself ill again!"

Pettifer was quick to hurry to his side also.  "My dear boy, is this prudent?"

"I'm fine, really," Harry said.  "Ron's looking after me.  Is there somewhere I'm supposed to sit?"

"He's too young to take his seat here," Quintus Criggle protested, and was glared at regally by Pettifer.

"He is too young to _vote_ , Quintus.  There is nothing in the rules that says he may not sit in his seat and bear witness before his peers!"

"But - but you're dead," Fudge almost protested, stunned, as Sirius and Ron helped Harry to an empty seat in the front row.

"Rumours of Harry's death have been greatly exaggerated!" Sirius snapped back.

"I wanted to say that," Harry told his godfather.

"Sorry."

"S'okay.  Whose chair is this one next to me?"

"That was Lucius Malfoy's seat," Pettifer told him.

"Great.  He won't be needing it, so Ron can sit there," Harry said, tugging on Ron's arm.  His friend didn't look so confident, but he wasn't about to make a fuss in the Wizengamot of all places.  He sat down and put a heavy square box he was carrying on the floor at his feet.

Dumbledore crossed the floor of the chamber to them. 

"Harry," he said quietly, "my very dear boy – never doubt my delight in seeing you on your feet again, but is this wise?  What does your healer say?"

"Mr. Pinker's waiting outside, Professor," Harry replied, managing a smile although he already looked tired from the effort he'd made.  "I had to come - we both did.  We talked about it and decided now was as good a time as any."

Dumbledore looked at Ron.  "And you, Mr. Weasley?  Are you sure you feel ready for this?  The risks …."

"The risks are worth it, Professor," Ron replied.  He looked a little pale, but determined.  "I reckon there's going to be a risk whenever we do it anyway, and it's the right thing to do."

Dumbledore inclined his head in acceptance.  "Very well.  You are both men grown; the decision is ultimately yours.  You have my deepest respect and I am grateful to you both."

"I don't think Fudge will be," Sirius said dryly.

A smile flickered across Dumbledore's face, but he stepped back and gestured for Pettifer and Sirius to do likewise.  Then he looked across the chamber at the Minister.

"Cornelius, I believe I will resign the floor for the moment.  My esteemed friends, please make welcome Henry Potter the Younger and Ronald Weasley, both of whom I believe have much to tell us."

"The chamber welcomes Henry Potter the Younger and his friend," Persephone Bellecoeur said in a sharp, carrying voice before Fudge could react, and there was a mumble of reluctant agreement from most of the other members of the Wizengamot.

"Thank you, Ma'am," Harry said.  It was a struggle for him to raise his voice enough to be heard by everyone, but he managed it.  His eyes never left Fudge though.  "Ron and I have come to testify, if you'll let us."

" _Your_ testimony I understand, young Potter," Scrimgeour said, eyeing him narrowly.  "But I don't understand your friend's presence."

"Ron is the other witness," Harry said.  "The anonymous one."  He gave Ron a slight nudge.  "Tell them."

Ron looked uneasy about being called upon to speak on his own behalf, but he stood up anyway.  "I was with Harry when he went to the church that night.  I was wearing his Invisibility Cloak, so he didn't know I was there at first, but I was with him the whole time - even when Father Marius abducted him.  I saw Father Marius kill Father Ignatius.  And it was me who helped Harry escape from Malfoy Manor.  I made Draco Malfoy help us, then I stunned him and stuffed him in a cupboard in the kitchen.  I took Harry back to his house so that the elves could help fix him up, because he was pretty knocked about, then we talked about what to do and he decided he wanted to go to Hogsmeade to try and stop You Know Who."

There was instant uproar from the members of the Wizengamot, and in the public gallery.  Fudge tried in vain for several minutes to call the chamber to order.

"This is fantasy!" he shouted finally, purple with agitation and stabbing a finger in the direction of the two boys.  "Two teenagers cooking up a tall tale between them – "

"Bollocks!" Harry said loudly, startling the chamber into sudden silence and making himself cough into the bargain. 

Sirius tried in vain to hide his delighted grin and went to get his godson a glass of water from the Minister's own carafe.

"I _beg_ your pardon?" Quintus Criggle said in an outraged tone.

"You heard him, Quintus," Petuarius Pettifer said dryly.  "Why the sour face?  The word has a perfectly respectable Anglo-Saxon heritage – and I second it wholeheartedly."

Harry took a leaf out of Madam Bellecoeur's book and banged his cane on the floor noisily to get everyone's attention again.  He had limited strength and no intention of wasting it on arguments.

"No one bloody well tells me that what happened to me was fantasy!" he said angrily.  "I was there, Ron was there, and Lord-fucking-Voldemort was there!  I know!  I saw him, I fought him and I _killed_ him.  It wasn't a bloody golem, it was Voldemort's soul inside an Animated body.  It was Voldemort.  Believe me, I know him better than just about anyone and he was there.  Okay?"

Fudge was white and his lips were drawn so tight that they almost disappeared entirely.

"Prove it!" he snapped.

If he had hoped to stump Harry, he was mistaken.  The teenager nodded almost as soon as the words were out.

"I'm glad you said that."  He gestured to the box at Ron's feet.  "Can you get it out, please, mate?"

Ron hastened to unlatch the lid of the box, but his nerves betrayed him; his hands were shaking too much and after a moment Sirius had to help him.  Together they got the lid open and lifted out the object inside, a small basin-shaped object made of a pinkish alabaster, with claw feet on a single pedestal and carved runes around the lip.

Harry gestured to it.  "My pensieve's a bit small, but Mr. Pettifer told me once that you have a really big one around here somewhere."

Aldous Yaxley spoke up incredulously from his seat in the second row.  "Are you intending to give _pensieve_ testimony?"

"That's right," Harry said, his eyes still on Fudge's white, appalled face.  "That way it's just my memories and Ron's, and nothing else.  It can't be faked and you'll see everything, even the stuff we've forgotten."

"Pensieve testimony hasn't been used in over a hundred years!" another member of the Wizengamot exclaimed, sounding quite indignant about it.

"Then it's about time you started again, isn't it?" Harry retorted.  His voice began to wobble a little; his strength was rapidly fading already.  "No wonder there's so much crap going on around here, if you can't be arsed to use a perfectly good pensieve to get to the bottom of things …."

Dumbledore's hand on his shoulder silenced any other comments he might have been thinking of making.

"Perhaps I should take over now, Harry," he suggested gently.  "You've made your point very well, but I believe there are only so many insults our honourable friends can swallow in one sitting."  But his eyes twinkled at Harry as he said it, and when he straightened up to face the rest of the Wizengamot there was a new vigour in him.  "My friends, shall we examine the sequence of events once again?  Clearly there is much new evidence to present to this chamber."

 

xXx

 

The first person Professor Dumbledore and Sirius encountered when Drooby admitted them to The Rose House was Nicholas Pinker, who was giving instructions to Maffy in the hallway.

"Ah, Mr. Black," he said, smiling slightly.  "Perhaps you can lend us your assistance.  You seem to have greater influence over Mr. Henry than the rest of us."

"You're joking, of course," Sirius said ruefully.  "What's the problem?  I was sure he'd be back in bed by now."

"That would be the problem," Pinker admitted.  "Such a stubborn young man - he refused to lie down until he was sure you, Pettifer and Professor Dumbledore were all right.  He planted himself in Henry's favourite chair as soon as we returned and he won't move, no matter what we say."

Maffy gave an angry cluck.  "Little Master is such a bad boy!"

"Perhaps we should go and reassure Harry," Dumbledore suggested, amused.  "I know him too well to make any promises of his capitulation though."

"No, but if he knows you're both safe and well, he might take it a little better later on when he discovers I slipped a sleeping draught in his tea," Pinker said dryly.

Sirius chuckled and stripped his gloves and cloak off, letting Drooby take them.  "All right, where is he?"

"In the study with young Mr. Weasley and his father, and Mr. Lupin," Pinker replied.  "I'll be there in a moment."

Sirius and Dumbledore walked through to the study.  Harry had indeed taken the imposing wing-backed leather chair that had been his grandfather's favourite seat in the room, and he looked rather small inside the vast depths of its button-studded upholstery.  He was still wearing his formal robes, complete with black cravat, and the dark colours made his wan face look drawn and exhausted - although that was undoubtedly an accurate reflection of how he felt.

By contrast, Arthur Weasley and Remus were sitting on the leather couch to one side; Arthur looked baffled and amused, if concerned, while Remus merely looked up when Sirius walked in and rolled his eyes in exasperation.  Ron was standing next to Harry, and although he looked anxious his ears were also red with vexation.

Sirius stopped just inside the door and put his hands on his hips as he regarded his godson with exasperated affection.

"We're not dead and they haven't dragged us off to Azkaban," he said.  "Now will you _please_ go back to bed, like Pinker asks?"

"Piss off," Harry grumbled.  "I'm fine."

"Absolutely.  That must be why you look like you're about to ooze out of that chair onto the floor."

"I'm not going back to bed," Harry snapped, and he had to pause to catch his breath.  "I spent - six weeks - in that poxy bed!  I'm fed up - of - bed!"

"Fine!  Then lie on the day-bed in the conservatory," Sirius suggested, refusing to lose his temper.

Harry muttered something savage under his breath.

"You only got up properly the other day," Ron told him sharply.  "What makes you think you can fly a bloody Quidditch match already, you pillock?"

"I don't see what's so bloody bad about - wanting to sit up - like a normal person!" Harry retorted angrily.  "I just want to know what happened!"

"Then we shall tell you, if you will at least calm down," Dumbledore replied calmly.  He flicked his wand at a couple more upright leather chairs, which cantered over to join the group.  "Sirius?"

Shooting the headmaster a quick look, Sirius took a chair.  Ron pulled up a squat tapestry stool that looked rather out of place among the other furnishings, but he leaned over Harry first.

"A least let me undo that thing you've got around your neck," he said.  "It looks like it's half cutting your head off ...."

"I can do it," Harry muttered.

"Shut up.  It's not like you've got anything to prove, so just let me untie it for you, you ungrateful git!"

His hands were gentle as he loosened the cravat, though, and Sirius saw him reach out and affectionately tweak Harry's right ear before he went to sit down again.  Then Dilly appeared with one of the other house-elves, carrying a tea service between them which they set down on a small table.  Pinker followed them into the room and Harry turned his glower onto the healer at once.

"Am I allowed to have tea?" he challenged him.

"After the day you've already had, Mr. Henry, I doubt one cup of tea will do any great harm," Pinker replied mildly.

"I might fancy two," Harry said mutinously.

"Indeed you might."  Pinker strolled over and took Harry's wrist, checking his pulse.  "May I say, sir, that you haven't changed at all from the first time I met you?"

Remus smothered a laugh.  Harry gave the healer a suspicious look, which Pinker returned with a bland one, and apparently decided this was one battle it was better to allow his opponent to win unchallenged.  Meanwhile, Dilly was pouring cups of tea and passing them around.  Harry received his in a kind of sipping mug with two large handles to make it easier to hold; for a moment he looked pained, but let it pass.  It was tea, after all, the first cup he'd had in many weeks.

"Now that we are comfortable," Dumbledore put in gently, "shall I begin?  Firstly, let me assure you both, Harry and Ronald, that your memories contained in the Wizengamot Pensieve at the moment have been placed in the charge of Alastor Moody and are thus quite safe.  They will be returned to you eventually, but the Aurors and court officials are busy examining them and transcribing the evidence for a permanent record."

"That's something," Arthur Weasley said, looking relieved.  "I was a little worried they might fall into the wrong hands in spite of our efforts, but I trust Moody."

"Indeed.  Although enough people have now viewed them that an alternative version of events being believed is highly unlikely," Dumbledore replied.

"Hm," Harry said, still unconvinced.  "I don't trust Fudge."  He took a long drink from his mug.

"You and more than half of the Wizengamot, I'd say," Sirius replied.  "Not that I feel a lot of sympathy for most of them - they were only too happy to listen to his version of events until now, even when some of it made no sense whatsoever.  I won't be forgetting that in a hurry."

"Cornelius will be fortunate if all that happens to him in the New Year is a swift change of Minister," Dumbledore said calmly.  "And until we know who that will be, we would be unwise to rest upon our laurels, but I suspect that in the prevailing mood - and especially after the impending criminal trials - it may be possible for those of us with influence to wield it to our benefit and the benefit of the magical community at large."

"Will Harry get into trouble for using an illegal curse, Professor?" Ron wanted to know.  This was something that had been worrying him ever since Harry woke up, because Harry couldn't consciously recall the last few minutes of their battle any more than Ron himself could.

"No," Dumbledore said firmly, and Ron wasn't the only one to take a relieved breath.  "The memories we viewed revealed both the direction of the Avada Kedavra curse and the fact that it appeared to be cast _after_ Harry's wand shattered.  As it is the opinion of every expert consulted that the curse was travelling towards Harry, not away from him, and that it cannot be cast without a wand to direct it, the conclusion is that Lord Voldemort himself must have cast it and Harry once again miraculously escaped death.  Consequently there can be no charges levelled against Harry or you."

There was a flaw in that argument but no one, least of all Ron, was about to mention it.

"Thank you for clarifying that," Arthur Weasley said, his face clearing.  "Molly and I have been worried that Ron might face accusations of some kind, especially from the Malfoys."

"Narcissa and Draco remain resolutely tight-lipped on the entire subject," Sirius remarked.  "And that's to their benefit, of course.  They'll both stand trial as accessories to what happened, and Draco will have a hard time escaping conviction, but the evidence against Cissy is a bit nebulous and we'll have to see what happens.  They'll have to stay under house arrest at the Malfoy town house for now, and I wish them the joy of it.  It's almost as much of a mausoleum as Grimmauld Place."

"Surely not," Remus remarked dryly, and Sirius grinned.

"Is she really pregnant?" Harry demanded.

"She is," Pinker said, before Sirius could reply.  "That was never in any doubt, surely?"

Harry looked at him.  "You're not her healer, are you?"

"No, but my youngest daughter is her midwife."  Pinker smiled at Harry's expression.  "She attends Miss Pettifer as well."

"Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

"Why should it be?  Midwives don't choose their clients on the basis of politics, Mr. Henry, any more than healers do."

"I'd like to hear you say that to the Board at St. Mungo's," Remus said rather sourly.  "They seem only too happy to treat some of their patients according to the whims of the Ministry."

"St. Mungo's relies upon funding from the Ministry and the generosity of men like Lucius Malfoy, Mr. Lupin," Pinker replied, unmoved.  "Regrettably, they allow that to sway their better judgement sometimes.  Private healers and midwives are in a different position."

"Getting back to the original subject …." Arthur Weasley put in apologetically.  "I still have concerns about the safety of the boys.  The pensieve evidence has made a huge difference, of course, but they'll still have to give testimony in court and there are plenty of people on the loose from both sides who I'm sure wouldn't mind trying to eliminate the witnesses."

"I understand your concerns," Dumbledore replied, "and precautions will have to be taken against those Death Eaters who are still on the loose.  I do not anticipate the security levels to need to be higher than they ever were for Harry until relatively recently, however.  And this house is secure, as is Hogwarts."

"And what about Ministry sympathisers?"

"I was wondering about that," Harry said in a cynical tone.  "I wonder how many dodgy Aurors are in Fudge's pocket?"

"The likelihood of an attack from that quarter is almost nil now, I would have thought," Remus told him.  "Were you aware of how many people were packed into the public gallery?  Most of them were reporters, a lot of them from foreign newspapers and wireless stations.  There was a chap next to me who'd taken a series of boosted portkeys from Australia just to report on the Minister's report to the closing session.  The true story is going to be on every front page tomorrow morning, from here to Sydney, New York and Moscow, and anyone who dares to lay a finger on you or Ron won't have many places to hide."

"Good.  They can find Father Marius while they're at it."  Harry sagged back in his chair, looking terribly tired, and allowed Pinker to remove the mug from his hand.

"I don't think he'll be missing for long," Sirius said after a pause.  "The murder of Father Ignatius and your abduction have already been widely publicised and it can only get more damaging as the details emerge.  It's the opinion of Bishop Incanto, based on what he knows of Father Marius, that he may try to seek sanctuary at the Patriarch's Basilica rather than doing what most people who are on the run would do and pretending to be someone other than a priest.  He's fairly ambitious and might hope to still convince the Patriarch that it was all a big mistake."

"Wasn't a mistake," Harry muttered.  In spite of himself his eyelids began to droop, but he fought it.  "Don't want to talk about him.  Mr. Pettifer …."

"Petuarius had family business to attend to, or he would have joined us here," Dumbledore said, observing Harry over the top of his spectacles.  "There is the matter of his daughters-in-law and grandchildren to attend to.  He has lost his eldest son, you know, and the younger will undoubtedly spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.  "

Harry managed a slight nod.  "I know.  Does he hate me?"

There was a chorus of protest at this.

"Don't be daft!" Ron told him, exasperated.  "Why would he hate you?  It's not like you asked either of his sons to become Death Eaters.  That's their own stupid fault and he knows that."

It looked as though Harry would have liked to refute this but quite suddenly, and without intending to, he lost the battle against his own exhausted body and fell asleep.

"About time!" Sirius said, relieved.  He put his own cup and saucer to one side and went to look at Harry.  "That took long enough, didn't it, Nick?  I thought you were going to slip him a dose?"

"I did," Pinker replied, preoccupied with checking his charge.  "He was already very tired; I only gave him enough to help him over the edge.  And as I already pointed out, he's a very stubborn young man.  He's been fighting it all the way ....  Yes, it's as I thought.  He used up the last of his strength with this little display of independence."

"Let's get him upstairs, then."  With very little effort Sirius picked Harry up.  The boy was a disturbingly small armful for a seventeen year old, and he looked down at him for a moment.  "Good thing Henry had the magic cupboard leading the bedroom," he remarked.  "Not that you weigh a damn thing."  He looked up at the others.  "We need to talk about some future plans in a minute," he said matter-of-factly and mostly to Dumbledore.  "But for now, the master of the house bids you all good night."

Harry made a grumpy mumbling noise, but didn't wake as Sirius carried him from the room with Pinker and Maffy in his wake.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

"You must be getting dreadfully tired of me reading to you," Remus remarked, closing the covers of his book and putting it on the side of the chaise-longe.

"S'okay," Harry said.  "You're a good reader."  He tried to smile, but it took an effort.  Everything seemed to take an effort these days, especially trying to be cheerful when he felt anything but.  "I'm tired of lying around all the time."

"Make the most of it," his godfather advised him.  "Life doesn't offer many opportunities for that sort of thing.  Once you're back on your feet, everyone will want a piece of you."

Harry managed another smile, but it was perfunctory.  The way he felt right now, he wasn't sure if being back on his feet would be the outstanding success everyone kept talking about.  The weakness he felt in the very core of his bones didn't seem like a temporary thing at all, but he was reluctant to ask Pinker about the future of his health because he was sure the healer would report the conversation to Sirius.  'Patient confidentiality' seemed to be a more flexible concept in the magical world.

The weather seemed to match his mood.  They were sitting in the conservatory, also known as the Ladies' Solar, and while it was pleasantly warm inside, the gardens outside were crusted with a hard frost that had settled in the night and so far refused to thaw.  Earlier, he and Remus had gone for a brief walk along the path in front of the conservatory, but the biting cold wind (and Harry's short-lived energy) had driven them back indoors after fifteen minutes.  It was the twenty-first of December, shortest day, and the overcast skies promised to make good on the date.  The house-elves were putting up decorations elsewhere in the house, but Harry had rarely felt less Christmassy.  In defiance of all the evidence, his body clock was still telling him that it was really early November.

"What happened to Ron?" he asked finally.  "He hasn't been here today."

Ron's parents had started exerting pressure on him to go home, now that Harry was technically 'on his feet', but he was still spending a lot of time at The Rose House.  Except for today.

"I don't know," Remus replied placidly.  "I'm sure he'll be here soon, though.  He's always here for tea."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, feeling quite dismal. 

Tea – great.  Another thing that he couldn't feel much enthusiasm for.  The loss of appetite was apparently quite normal after his extended illness (this Pinker had told him without any prompting, and he didn't seem concerned about it) but Harry had so far avoided telling anyone that even had he wanted to eat, there would be no pleasure in it because he seemed to have lost his sense of taste and consequently everything tasted bland or vaguely metallic.  He wasn't sure why he didn't want to tell them though.  Possibly because it would mean another round of tests and anxiety, and he didn't think they needed that.  It was just taste after all, and hardly more significant than the frequent and incapacitating bouts of weakness he suffered.

It was another thing adding to his depression though.  And how stupid was that?  He'd killed Voldemort and lived to tell the tale; he could get on with his life.  There was nothing to be depressed about.

Sudden footsteps rang on the paved floor and Sirius entered the conservatory, pulling off his cloak, gloves and scarf and handing them to a beaming Drooby.

"Whew!" he said cheerfully.  "That was a chilly flight, I don't mind telling you!  The invisibility charms are still working a treat on the bike, though.  When you're feeling a bit more the thing, Harry, I'll have to take you up."

Harry forced another smile, thinking that it would be a good long time before he would feel well enough to contemplate climbing on the back of the motorbike.

"The elves have got the tree up in the drawing room," Sirius continued, pulling up a chair.  "They won't decorate it until you come and tell them where you want everything to go, though."

Harry wondered how badly they would take it if he asked them to box all the decorations up and put them back in the attic.  Apparently his expression was more revealing than he would have liked, for Sirius gave his foot a gentle shove.

"Don't look like that!  It's Christmas!"

"I haven't had a Hallowe'en yet," Harry pointed out.

"So we'll get Keppy and the other one in the kitchen, Whatsisname, to make a couple of pumpkin lanterns as well, then.  Very festive.  Are you going to get up for tea?"

"Maffy is helping the little Master to sit up," the elderly nurse said, getting up from her seat on the other side of the day bed.  She began to fuss with his pillows, so Harry had no choice but to sit up and allow her to prop him up comfortably.

"Did you sort out the builders?" Remus asked Sirius, while this was happening.

"I did," his partner said briskly.  "Of course, the one who wasn't a builder but a journalist was another matter, but I let Cousin Susannah deal with him."

This caught Harry's interest for once.  He had considerable experience of the seventeenth century ghost known as 'Cousin Susannah', most of it not very positive.  "What did she do?"

Sirius grinned at him.  "The usual!  And when he's changed his underpants, he'll find his editor ready to scream at him a bit more.  I was _not_ amused to find him rooting around in our part of the house, although the wards on the bedrooms were holding quite well."

"Marvellous," Remus said, looking aggravated.  "What's the matter with these people?  Everyone knows Harry's here, and not at the Manor!"

"They're hoping they can find something personal for a scoop, of course – either that or they're desperate to get their mitts on your John Denver records.  Fortunately the builders weren't put off by Susannah shrieking her head off.  They've stabilised the staircase again and fixed the doors, and as soon as they get the specifications from the securiwitch they'll start looking at bricking up the passage to Holy Bones."

"Good," Remus said firmly.  "Call me strange if you like, but that passage … well, it'll always have bad associations for us."

"Oh, I can't think of a good reason to keep it," Sirius agreed, "and I must be getting old because having a hidden passage for the sake of having a hidden passage doesn't appeal to me much.  The foreman asked me if we're interested in a sunken garden, by the way."

"A sunken … whatever for?"

"He says if they can map out where the passage goes one way of ensuring it stays closed is to collapse it, and if they do it in the right place we'll have the makings of a nice sunken garden.  What do you reckon?  You're the green-fingered one in the family.  Harry, what do _you_ think?"

"I'm not much of a gardener," Harry said evasively.

"I'll think about it," Remus said, giving his partner an odd look.

Sirius shrugged, unconcerned.  "Up to you, mate."

Another set of footsteps approached and Ron appeared, already divested of cloak, gloves and scarf, although he was pink-cheeked and windblown.  Harry felt some of his depression lift when he saw him.

"Where've you been all day?" he demanded.

"That's nice!" Ron said with a grin, as he perched on the end of Harry's couch.  "I've got to do my Christmas shopping sometime, you know!"

"Oh.  On a Sunday?"

"There's been a revolution in Hogsmeade and most of the shops were open today," Ron said casually.

Harry blinked.  "You've been to Hogsmeade?"

"And Hogwarts.  Never mind that, though.  How are you today?  What have you been up to?"

"I'm fine, I've been re-tiling the roof," Harry said impatiently.  "What do you mean, you've been to Hogwarts?"

"Harry, when you leave school you've got a great career ahead of you with the Spanish Inquisition," Sirius told, the corner of his mouth twitching.  "Mind you, they'll probably want you to tone it down a bit.  How are you doing, Ron?"

"I'm fine," Ron said, chuckling.  "It's dead cold, though, and it was snowing again when I left Hogwarts."

"I should think we'll have snow here tonight," Remus remarked, "or another hard frost, perhaps – "

"Who cares about the weather?" Harry demanded.  "So it's cold – can you all get over it now?"

"Charming, you are," Ron told him.  "So what have you been up to all day?"

"Nothing!  I lie here and listen to my toenails growing!"

"Little Master is not to be exciting himself!" Maffy told him severely.  "He is _resting_."

"He didn't lie there _all_ day," Remus told Ron.  "We went out for a walk after lunch."

"Fifteen minutes," Harry  said sourly.  "Then Remus had to help the poor old man indoors."

"What poor old man?" Ron asked, looking startled, and Sirius hastily turned a laugh into a cough.

"Me, you prat!" Harry snapped.  "Don't you know how dangerous walking in the gardens is?  The excitement could do me in!"

Ron sniggered.  "Wild life, mate!"

Harry pulled his blanket up to his chin, feeling angry and defensive.  "S'all right for _you_ ," he said accusingly.

"Don't be such a grumpy git!" Ron told him, unperturbed by Harry's temper.  "I went up to Hogwarts to see a few people and let everyone know you're okay and getting better.  I've got a load of notes and cards for you – they're in my cloak pocket, I'll get them in a minute.  Are you getting up?  I reckon Dilly's setting up for tea in the drawing room and there's a whopping great tree in there that's begging to be decorated."

Harry dragged the blanket even closer to his chest.  "I'm not hungry," he mumbled.

Ron gave him a patient look.  "You can still get up and have a cup of tea.  And I reckon Wibsey's made scones, I could smell 'em on the way in."

"Tell you what," Remus said suddenly, "how about Sirius and I go and see how they're getting on?"

"Good idea," Sirius said readily, in response to his partner's unsubtle glance.  "Come and join us when you're ready, lads."

Ron watched them leave accompanied by a muttering Maffy, then hopped off the chaise-longe and appropriated Remus's chair.

"You're in a good mood," he told Harry. 

"So would you be if you spent most of your days asleep and couldn't walk to the head of the drive without nearly passing out," Harry retorted, but he couldn't raise any decent heat in his voice.  His energy was flagging again, and he didn't want to fight with Ron in any case.  "So what's going on at school?"

"Everyone's getting wound up about the New Year's Eve Ball," Ron said, and he made a face.  "Or the girls are, anyway.  Most people have stayed this Christmas because of it, so the place is heaving.  It's like a re-run of Fourth Year, only without all the people from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons.  I reckon Dumbledore wants to make it a proper celebration – you know, because of You Know Who being gone and all."

"Great," Harry said unenthusiastically.  He decided he was grateful that he wouldn't be there in that case.  There was no chance of him being well enough to go to a ball of all things.  Then something occurred to him.  "You're not going, are you?"

"Probably," Ron admitted.  He hesitated for a second, then leaned forward in his chair.  "I went up to Hogwarts mostly to see Professor McGonagall," he explained.  "I wanted to see if it's worth me going back to school when I've missed nearly two months of classes, or whether I'd have to write off this year and re-take Seventh Year entirely next September."

Harry's heart sank.  "So what did she say?"

Ron shrugged.  "She reckons it's worth me going back," he said, and he leaned back again.  "I don't know if I'll be able to catch up enough to take my NEWTS in June, but she said if I wasn't up to standard I could always request extra tutoring over the summer holiday and sit my NEWTs with the re-take candidates next autumn."

"Are you going to?"

"Yeah," Ron said, meeting his eyes frankly.  "I reckon it's worth a try.  I wasn't doing too badly before Hallowe'en and I reckon Hermione might help me catch up a bit if I ask nicely."

Harry fell silent at this.  He didn't want to discourage Ron; he'd already thought about this a little and knew in his heart of hearts that it would be incredibly selfish to expect him to give up his final year at school just because Harry didn't want to be alone over the coming months.  Ron needed the exam passes much more than he did, after all.  He knew he wasn't always a good friend, but he wasn't oblivious to Ron's needs and knew that the right thing to do was to encourage him.  It was just hard to find the words when the last thing he wanted to do was say them.

"So what about you?" Ron asked him after a short silence.

"What about me?"

"Are you going to come back to school?"

"I can't," Harry said, feeling his chest tighten.  "I can't take a walk in the garden without falling flat on my face.  There's no way I can take classes."

"But you're getting better," Ron said reasonably, "and you're not going to be walking around all the time, are you?  You're okay when you're sitting down."

"Ron – "

"Look, why don't you talk to someone like Dumbledore about it?  You don't _have_ to take everything, do you?"  Ron snorted.  "You could quit Divination for a start.  And I reckon you already know more than that prat teaching DADA, so maybe you could give that one up.  And it's not like you'll be doing all the extra training, so that'll help.  Although … you wouldn't be able to play Quidditch, I suppose."

"You don't understand," Harry muttered.  "Everything's different now."

"Yeah.  You don't have You Know Who after you anymore.  You can finish school and actually _do_ stuff, without having to wonder if he's going to blow up half a street whenever you stick your nose outdoors.  Isn't it brilliant?"

Harry huddled into his pillows.  "It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't even know if I _can_ do magic anymore, okay?  I haven't got a wand – "

"Your wand's at the Ministry.  You'll get it back after the trials, and you can get another one to use until then."

"I feel _ill_ , Ron!" Harry burst out, frustrated.  "I get tired practically as soon as I stand up, everything aches, I sleep all the time, I don't want to eat and when I do I can't taste anything, and I haven't levitated a feather since I woke up.  What's the point in going back to school?  Everyone'll still be staring at me and treating me like a freak – and – and if I can't do magic – I can't stand being pitied!"

Ron tilted his head on one side, considering him.  "Have you talked to Mr. Pinker?" he asked.

"No," Harry muttered.  "What's the point?"

"The point," Pinker himself said, following Maffy into the conservatory, "is that had you talked to me, I could have reassured you about many things.  Why _didn't_ you talk to me, Mr. Henry?"

Harry looked up at him sullenly.  He liked Pinker, in fact, but it wasn't in his nature to express that openly.

"You'll tell people like Sirius and then they'll start fussing – "

"They're already _fussing_ ," Pinker interrupted calmly, "and I tell Mr. Black these things because he's legally responsible for you until myself and two healers from St. Mungo's are prepared to declare you fit enough to manage your own affairs again."

He took his wand out and began to run a series of little tests, just as he did every day when he saw Harry.  He continued talking as he did so.

"It's very natural not to have much appetite after the ordeal you've been through, and as you're not very active at the moment you don't need to eat a great deal anyway.  The problem with your sense of taste, however, is a side-effect of one of the potions you've been taking to build up your strength, which I would have told you had you asked me.  And before you ask, I didn't volunteer the information because sometimes patients _don't_ suffer side-effects and telling them that something _might_ happen simply makes them obsess about it until they've convinced themselves that they have it anyway."

Ron grinned at this, but Harry frowned.

"I'm tired all the time," he said, "and I haven't done any magic at all in ages."

"I would own myself astonished if you weren't tired," Pinker said dryly, "and a sensible man would rest his magic after all you've been through.  Mr. Henry, your body and brain suffered two very dangerous, life-threatening shocks in quick succession – the first when you de-Animated that creature and a bolt of raw power ran directly through you, and the second when the power of the Killing Curse was somehow absorbed into your system.  Either of these events would have killed another man instantly.  Do you know _why_ you didn't die, Sir?"

"No," Harry said.  "Why didn't I?"

"Well, it's pure speculation on my part, of course," Pinker said, with a knowing smile, "but I would say that you didn't die as a result of the de-Animation because you are an Animator and your body is naturally accustomed to handling elemental magic.  And you probably didn't die from the Avada Kedavra curse because it originated from you in the first place and your body recognised the magical signature enough to reabsorb the energy somewhat.  What do you think?"

"I don't know," Harry said, regarding him with a fascinated eye.  "I honestly don't remember what happened."

"Just so," Pinker said, nodding.  "You may rest assured that I'll not be favouring anyone else with my theories … not least because the three of us know it to be impossible to recall a curse once it has been cast.  Nevertheless, you came very close to dying of the effects of your actions that day, Sir, and I would add that had your guardians not taken the very sensible step that they did in refusing to give you into the care of St. Mungo's, you probably would have died anyway."  Pinker finished his tests and put his wand away, giving Harry a sardonic smile.  "You've had the most extraordinary good fortune, Mr. Henry, and so as your healer I would like to give you a piece of advice that I feel sure your family and friends won't."

"What's that?" Harry asked him suspiciously.

"Don't push your luck again," Pinker replied.  "Consider yourself a kneazle that has used up at least seven of its lives already, and exercise a little caution in the future."

"I'm always careful," Harry said, rather offended by this.  "It's not my fault people are always trying to kill me!"

Pinker sighed and shook his head.  "Your friend is most certainly a Potter, Mr. Weasley," he said to Ron.  "His father would never believe that he was reckless either, and there was no arguing with his grandfather at all."  He turned back to Harry.  "You may be your own worst enemy, Mr. Henry, and in more than one way!"

"Hm," Harry said, unconvinced, although for some reason hearing Pinker say these things was more difficult to ignore than other people.  "So does this mean I can't go back to school in January?"

Pinker considered this.  "I would like to see how you are after Christmas," he said finally, "and there will be the necessity of an examination by the Board members at St. Mungo's.  I'm afraid there's no getting around that, it's the standard procedure when a critically ill patient has been nursed at home by a private healer.  But Madam Pomfrey is an excellent healer who is familiar with your constitution and has a well-appointed infirmary at her disposal, and while there would certainly need to be some accommodations made for your ongoing recuperation, I believe it may be possible for you to return to school if you wish."

Harry gave him a doubtful look.  "Really?"

Pinker smiled.  "Really.  It may even be beneficial for you to do so.  It hasn't escaped my notice that you seem very depressed lately, and while this is entirely to be expected given your state of health and the ridiculous level of unnecessary stress you've been subjected to lately, spending a lot of time with nothing to occupy you isn't good for you, mentally or physically.  Being surrounded by your peers once more, following your normal daily routines and exercising your mind in classes, will undoubtedly make you feel a great deal better.  But at your age, Mr. Henry, the choice to return to school is yours alone." 

He reached out and gave Harry's shoulder a kindly squeeze.  "I'll return tomorrow.  In the meantime, make the effort to get up and eat a little!  I'll look into replacing that particular potion with something milder that won't upset your tastebuds.  You're doing well enough now that it probably won't hurt to cut it out entirely.  Good day to you, gentlemen!"

He left again on quiet feet, leaving Harry to the mercies of his nurse.

"There!" Maffy said in a scolding tone, and she took Harry's blanket away from him, folding it up.  "Little Master is a very silly boy not to ask old Maffy and his healer what is wrong with him!  You is getting up now and having tea like a good boy.  Maffy will set your chair for you, and she is having no more nonsense!"

She whisked away before Harry could respond to this, leaving him to look at Ron.

Ron grinned at him.  "That told you, mate!"

"Looks like it," Harry grumbled and he slowly sat up, swinging his feet over the side of the chaise-longe.  Once there he had to sit still for a moment.

"Will you come back to school then?" Ron asked, making no move to get out of his chair.  "If all the healers say you can, that is."

Harry shrugged.  "I don't know.  Is there much point?"

"You could still do with getting your NEWTs," Ron pointed out reasonably.  "I thought you wanted to get Potions particularly, so that you can brew the Wolfsbane Potion for Remus?"  That was true.  Harry hadn't thought of that.  "And you don't have to take everything, do you?  We could re-sit our exams together next September."

"I don't know," Harry said.  He still didn't think he could cope with everyone pointing and staring though.

Perhaps Ron read his mind, or possibly he simply knew Harry too well by now.

"Zabini and the other Slytherins want you back," he said.

Harry snorted.  "No they don't!  Why would they?  Half of them lost members of their family because of me.  They're not going to welcome me back anytime soon."

"You're wrong," Ron told him.  "Zabini's been trying to manage everything while you've been gone, but he's not _you_.  They respect you.  I kept getting my ears bashed today by all the people who wanted to know when you're coming back because it's not the same without you there.  I reckon Lilywhite's been acting up again," he added as an afterthought.

"Lilywhite's a complete tosser!" Harry said sharply.  "Christ, why can't he learn?  And why hasn't someone just dragged him into a cupboard and thrashed him?"

"I don't know, mate, I'm just a Gryffindor, remember?"  Ron raised his brows at him.  "Maybe they didn't do it because you weren't there to sort it out for them?  Or maybe without you there he won't stay thrashed."

"That's a load of crap," Harry said roughly.

"Yeah, probably.  There was a third year as well – I think he's a third year, anyway, although he's built like a brick outhouse – "

"Haggerly," Harry said at once.  "Muggleborn, all chin and spots?"

"That's him," Ron nodded.  "Said to tell you he's got your _spider_.  Do I even want to know what that means?"

Harry's mouth twitched in spite of himself.  "That'll be Phoebe," he explained.

"Right.  Phoebe the spider."  Ron rolled his eyes and shook his head.  "Nope, I don't want to know what that means.  But Haggerly says Remus let him take it to look after when he went to collect your trunk at the beginning of November.  He says he keeps Tarantulas at home, and I don't want to know about that either."

"You're a complete girl about spiders."

"I have a perfectly normal and sensible caution about them," Ron told him loftily.  "That reminds me – Hermione said to tell you that she can produce a complete copy of her class notes for each of us, if we want them, and Tony Goldstein said he and Zabini can sort you out for Potions, Herbology and Transfiguration."  His tone changed.  "Then he asked me a whole load of nosy questions that were _clearly_ intended to find out if you're still in possession of all your vital equipment and I had to deck him."

Harry gave in and sniggered.  "He doesn't fancy me, Ron!"

Ron looked exasperated.  "No, Harry – he really _does_ fancy you.  I thought he was going to burst into tears when I told him you were okay and back to being your usual grumpy-git self."

"Hey!  I'm not a grumpy git …."

"And he's not the only one!" Ron continued indignantly, ignoring him.  "I had Snodgrass weeping on my shoulder too, so what's _that_ all that about?"

"Amy?" Harry said, surprised and secretly a little gratified.

"What do you mean, _Aaameee?_ " Ron demanded, mimicking Harry's tone, although there was a distinct laugh in his voice and the corner of his mouth was twitching.  "Merlin, how many more of them are going to crawl out of the woodwork?  For a minute I thought even _Bulstrode_ was going to have a girly moment, which is too scary to be believed, but Snodgrass was acting like she'd already bought a set of widow's robes!"

"Now you're winding me up," Harry said, but a laugh was welling up in his chest.

"Only just," Ron said good-naturedly.

"You didn't really deck Goldstein, did you?"

"No, but I was tempted.  I handed Snodgrass to him instead, which was almost as good because I reckon he's a bit clueless about girls."

Harry gave way and laughed himself breathless.  Ron grinned at him when the paroxysm had finally passed.

"That's better, mate.  I haven't seen you laugh once since you woke up."

"Haven't had an awful lot to laugh about," Harry admitted.

"I know.  But Mr. Pinker's right, you know.  If you can get a good snort out of hearing about that stuff, think how much better it'll be when you get to see it for yourself."

"They'll all be a bloody pain in the arse," Harry scoffed, but he was wavering.

"Maybe, but you'll be able to kick their arses in person," Ron pointed out.

"And then fall flat on my face because I'm too weak to keep my balance!"

"Or you could get someone else to do the arse-kicking for you," Ron suggested, and he grinned infectiously.  "I reckon there'll be a long queue of people volunteering to help – starting with me."

Harry smiled at this, but didn't know what to say.  "Is this it?" he asked after a moment.  "Do we just … carry on, like nothing happened?"

Ron shrugged, still smiling a little.  "Maybe.  It's like sticking two fingers up at You Know Who and his mates, isn't it?  They wanted to take this away from you, so you kick 'em in the teeth by carrying on like they weren't important enough to change anything.  Yeah?"

"Maybe."

"You don't have to decide anything tonight," Ron said when it was clear Harry wasn't going to say anything else.  "Think about it over Christmas."

"Yeah," Harry said quietly.

Sirius appeared in the doorway.  "Are you coming to tea, you two?"

Ron got up and offered Harry a hand, but Harry shook his head and slowly got to his feet by himself.  Sirius found his antique cane – which had once belonged to Henry Potter – and held it out matter-of-factly.

"I hope you weren't planning to decorate the tree," he said with a guilty smile.  "I got a bit carried away.  But you can put the angel on the top."

"I reckon I might be able to manage that," Harry said.

They walked through the house to the drawing room, where the elves had already lit some lamps as dusk began to fall, and found Remus standing next to a tree that was easily nine feet tall.  It had been decorated with a mixture of tiny gold bells and antique ornaments in a variety of shapes, and there was a smattering of real fairies providing twinkling lights.

"That looks nice," Harry said, and Ron nodded his agreement.

Remus tucked his hands into his pockets and surveyed the tree with a small smile.  "The last time there was a Christmas tree in this house, you were just a little chap who chewed on my fingers at every opportunity."

"He can still do that, if you want," Sirius suggested.  He strolled over to a box that lay on the nearest chair and picked it up, taking the lid off.  "Here, Harry – do you want to borrow my wand to put this on the top?"

Harry stared at the gold and crystal angel with its delicate wings and curved trumpet.  He wondered if his magic would come back enough to do this, or if the angel would mimic his fears and fall to the ground, smashing its wings and his own hopes.  He shook his head.

"No – it's okay."

He held his hand out over the box and summoned his magic wandlessly.  For a moment he thought nothing would happen – then it surged up inside him, clean and strong, and it took only the gentlest of motions with his hand to lift the angel and send it soaring up to the top of the tree.  The charms on it automatically secured it to the tip of the tree and it shivered into life, making a little bell-like sound on its trumpet.

Harry let out the breath he'd been holding and bit his lip as Sirius flicked his wand at the ornaments and the tiny gold bells began to play a tinkling rendition of _The Carol Of Bells_.

Ron's hand came to rest on the back of Harry's neck, warm and comforting. 

"Merry Christmas, Harry."

 

 

 **\- The End -**

 

 

 

 **Epilogue**

 

 _A glooming peace this morning with it brings;_

 _The sun for sorrow will not show his head._

 _Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things._

 _Some shall be pardoned, and some punishéd ...._

 

Draco Malfoy was tried and convicted in March 1998 of being a member of a banned organisation (the Death Eaters) and of complicity in the abduction and illegal incarceration of Henry Potter the Younger with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.  The Court took into account the representations of various individuals, including Albus Dumbledore, before sentencing him to twenty years in Azkaban, suspended on condition that (i) his wand, which had been destroyed during the events of that Hallowe'en, would not be replaced for the duration of his suspended sentence, (ii) that he would be permitted only restricted licence to travel, including the surrender of his right to travel outside of the United Kingdom for the duration of his suspended sentence, (iii) he would be required to report to a Court-appointed Probation Officer once a fortnight, and (iv) he would render his family residences, possessions, documents and financial affairs completely and unequivocally open to the scrutiny of, and decontamination by, the Aurors.  In addition, the Wizengamot passed by majority a motion to prevent Draco Malfoy taking up his seat or voting in the Wizengamot until the suspended sentence was discharged.

Narcissa Malfoy escaped conviction on the grounds that there was little conclusive evidence to prove her complicity in the events of 31st October 1997.  The Court did, however, express its considerable suspicion in the matter and remanded her into the indefinite custody of her legal _paterfamilias_ , Sirius Black.  She gave birth to a son on the 18th April 1998, but having previously admitted that the father might not be her late husband, her child was rejected by Draco Malfoy and was subsequently acknowledged as a kinsman by Sirius Black and named Orion Romulus.  Narcissa initially cared for the child herself, but eighteen months later she gave him to her sister Andromeda Tonks to raise and went to live with friends in France.

Primrose Pettifer gave evidence to the Court on her own behalf regarding the death of her estranged father, Claude Pettifer, during the attack on Cedar Lodge on the night of the 31st October 1997, and was exonerated of all blame.  She gave birth to a daughter on the 1st June 1998 who was acknowledged as the heir of Sirius Black and named Venus Elvira.  Primrose and her daughter continued to live with Petuarius Pettifer for four years, until Primrose married, and Venus now lives with her father but visits her mother regularly.

Gervase Pettifer was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the attack on Black Manor on the 31st October 1997.  His son and daughter were placed in the custody of his legal _paterfamilias_ , Petuarius Pettifer, and his wife advised either to come to an arrangement with her father-in-law or return to her own family.  Claude Pettifer's widow and two young sons went to live with Petuarius Pettifer so that he could supervise the boys' upbringing and support their mother appropriately. 

Guiseppe Zabini was also sentenced to life imprisonment for the attack on Black Manor, and in addition he was tried for the attempted murder of his father Antonio by slow poison.  He died in Azkaban less than a year into his sentence, after an inmate brawl got out of hand.  Antonio Zabini made a partial recovery from the poisoning but remained in poor health for the rest of his life.

Other Death Eaters, including Rodolphus Lestrange, also received life sentences in Azkaban, while certain sympathisers to their cause received lesser custodial sentences.  A number of individuals, however, remained on the run at the time of trial and were sentenced _in absentia_ , including Father Mortimer Nott and Father Marius Lundes.

Father Mortimer Nott gave himself up to the Patriarch's Basilica after nearly twelve months as a fugitive.  After trial by a religious court presided over by the Patriarch himself, he was given a choice; extradition to stand trial in the United Kingdom or a sentence determined by the Church.  He opted for the latter and was remanded into the custody of a closed order of Omnis Arcanum monks in Romania, where he remained for the rest of his natural life.

Despite strenuous efforts on the part of the Aurors both in the British Isles and on the continent, Father Marius Lundes continued to evade capture until the autumn of 2003, when a Roman Catholic priest in New York with family connections in the wizarding world sent a message to the Patriarch's Basilica containing information that was, after consideration, passed to Aurors both in the United Kingdom and the United States.  In a joint operation, the Aurors extracted Father Marius from the Catholic seminary where he had been in hiding for five years.  He was extradited to the United Kingdom and given an opportunity to defend himself before a Court hearing in the spring of 2004, but declined to do more than make several highly-charged religious and political statements which were duly recorded.  The Omnis Arcanum Church formally defrocked him, disclaiming all interest in his fate, and he was sent to Azkaban for the murder of Father Ignatius Yaxley and the conspiracy to kidnap Henry Potter the Younger.

The murder of Father Ignatius Yaxley desecrated the Church of the Holy Bones, which consequently had to be closed to its congregation for a period of several months.  After some discussion among senior Church officials, it was re-consecrated by the Patriarch himself in March 1998.  His offer to Confirm Henry Potter the Younger at the same service was politely refused; it remains standing, but has yet to be accepted.

Cornelius Fudge was replaced as Minister of Magic by Persephone Bellecoeur in February 1998.  This was seen as a cautious step in the right direction by the reform faction in the Wizengamot, although there is clearly still a long way to go in terms of governmental reform in Wizarding Britain.

The Dark Creatures Internment Bill was finally raised in the Wizengamot in March 1998 and  rejected by a slender majority.  A small victory, as both its opponents and supporters noted - but a victory nonetheless, as Remus Lupin pointed out.  Lupin himself, with the support of Sirius Black and a number of other powerful individuals, began to campaign for werewolf rights, initially quietly and then with more prominence as his support base grew.  The outcomes of this remain to be seen.

It took Sirius Black nearly seven years to return Black Manor entirely to a habitable condition, largely because - as he freely admitted - he lacked true motivation.  Nevertheless, the house did eventually become more of a home to his increasing family and less of a burden upon his temper and finances.  By the end of 1998 Sirius had successfully retracted the legal disinheritance of his cousin Andromeda and he was able to formally acknowledge her daughter Nymphadora as a kinswoman.  From that point onwards the Manor began to develop a livelier character, especially when Venus and Orion were in residence.  Sirius's next project will be number twelve Grimmauld Place; there is some suggestion that he may act upon a comment once made by his partner, Remus Lupin, and turn it into a boarding house for foreign language students.

Those members of the Order of the Phoenix who were drugged by Father Marius during their watch over the Church of the Holy Bones on the night of the 31st October 1997, including Charlie Weasley, all made a full recovery.  Ted Tonks remained in St. Mungo's Hospital for nearly a month after receiving his injuries at Black Manor on the same night, and was still recuperating some three months later, but he too eventually made a full recovery.  Severus Snape had the lower part of his left arm amputated during the attack on Black Manor; despite the severity of this injury, he recovered fully and returned to his position as Potions Master at Hogwarts on a part-time supervisor basis just before Christmas 1997.  He returned to the position full-time in February 1998 and does not appear to be overly inconvenienced by the loss of his hand.

Ron Weasley's role in the rescue and support of Henry Potter the Younger during the events of the 31st October 1997 was initially submitted to the Court in January 1998 as locked testimony, in an attempt to shield the two of them from excessive media and public interest.  In spite of this, parts of his testimony were almost immediately leaked, with the result that the whole testimony was reluctantly released to the press in the interests of accuracy.  Ron became the hero of the hour, a position he found less enjoyable than he had once imagined it would be.  He continued his final year at Hogwarts as planned and sat his NEWT examinations in Charms, Divination and Herbology with the rest of his yearmates in June 1998, reserving Potions, Transfiguration and Defence Against The Dark Arts to be taken with the re-sit candidates the following September.  In the event he failed both Divination and Potions and achieved only a moderate grade in Transfiguration, but he was in the top three pass grades in DADA and achieved excellent results in Charms and Herbology.  He also took the Ministry of Magic entrance examination at the insistence of his parents and passed, and as a consequence he decided to take a job at the Ministry while he reviewed his options.  Taking the decision to continue his studies in his own time with the assistance of friends, he re-sat Potions and Transfiguration in September 1999 and gained respectable passes in both subjects, after which he decided to take lessons in Arithmancy as well, in the hopes of achieving the OWL pass required for him to be admitted into certain apprenticeships.  This he achieved in the summer of 2002 but despite a firm offer of training as a Curse-Breaker, Ron decided that he had seen enough of dangerous curses and surprised everyone but a few very close confidants by taking an apprenticeship as a healer - a profession he does very well in.

Henry Potter the Younger - Harry - returned to Hogwarts School at the beginning of February 1998.  Despite a reduced workload and the assistance of his friends and classmates, his health remained poor and by the end of May it was reluctantly accepted that he would not be able to sit his NEWT examinations that year.  He returned home and continued to study at his own pace for the next twelve months, with the assistance of his godparents and several retired professors who volunteered their services.  In June 1999 he sat his Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology and Defence Against The Dark Arts NEWTs; he received respectable passes in the first three, and in DADA he achieved the highest score by a Hogwarts pupil in a hundred and thirty years.  Harry continued to struggle with health problems, though, rendering academic the question of apprenticeships and employment.  He continued to study Animation under Professor Flitwick's supervision, however, and later received instruction and guidance from several other Animators, resulting in his acceptance as a novice member of the International Brotherhood Of Master Animators in the spring of 2000.  He was to become known as a gifted toy-maker over the years that followed, which went some way towards allaying the concerns of the general wizarding public that so young a wizard should be so wealthy, well-connected and magically powerful.  This was something of an irony, however, for Harry remained the same prickly and troubled character he had always been, with the same inclination for provocation and the same troubled personal relationships.  He formally took his seat in the Wizengamot in the summer of 2005, but despite the anxieties of the other members of that august chamber, Harry's behaviour proved less controversial than they had feared.  He certainly became a vocal member of the reform and modernist movement within the Wizengamot, and he became known for his exceptionally plain-spoken manner in the chamber, but - ever the Slytherin - he knew how and when to pick his battles.

On a personal level, his life was less simple.  After returning home from Hogwarts Harry initially lived with his godparents at Black Manor, but he was restless and impatient with both his health problems and with changes to their shared domestic circumstances, which occasionally led to friction with Sirius Black.  Although it would have been possible for Harry to persuade his trustees to allow him to live in his family home, The Rose House, in early 1999 he and Ron Weasley decided to rent a small flat off Diagon Alley together.  There was concern and some opposition from their respective families about this but they went ahead nevertheless, although Harry's health continued to be a problem, leading to occasional returns to Black Manor.  Harry attained his full majority in the summer of 2001 and he and Ron moved to The Rose House to live, where Harry continued to study Animation and work increasingly at making toys and puppets.  He progressed to a more senior status within the International Brotherhood of Master Animators and gained their permission to begin studying manual animation alongside his regular studies, and this led to a long run of such toys as a miniaturised Quidditch team, and variations on kites and the Muggle rocking horse.  The irony in this lay in the fact that Harry was far from being at ease with children and preferred to keep his distance from them.  From toys he branched out into furniture that included chairs with such useful animations as self-propulsion, portkey capabilities and limited low-level flight, and self-raising stepladders.  When Ron began his training as a healer, Harry took an interest in objects which could be animated in order to assist those with medical problems; in particular artificial limbs.  This remains his primary area of study and he hopes that one day, perhaps with input from Ron and others, he may be able to produce artificial limbs which operate much as normal limbs do under the full control of the user.

Harry remains uncomfortable with his proper name and First Family status, however, and he is adamant that there will be no more Potters to follow him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I owe thanks to byakkodan_slash, caerglas, hardticket, kakyd, kerryblaze, lady81bird, lecharmdiscret and shocolate, who all answered my call for assistance with scurrilous nicknames for Harry at short notice :-) Damkina and madambeetroot get special mentions for assistance above and beyond the call of friendship, namely answering frantic text messages and phonecalls at unseasonable moments in order to clarify plot ideas and assist with unlikely verbs and Latin.
> 
> Notes on inclusions: Harry briefly mentions that he makes use of "Gormbridge Notes"; Gormbridge is the wizard university mentioned in The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart. It seemed fitting to make a bow to this lovely little story, which I read many years ago, long before Harry Potter had even been thought of by J. K. Rowling. The Archbishop of Constantinople as mentioned in this story is in no way connected to any church or individual in real life; just thought I ought to mention that. The book Ron is reading from in Chapter 20 is The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis, of course. And finally … I seem to have been watching too much CSI and Pirates of the Caribbean: apologies for the random references and influences!


End file.
